Thursday in London, the Toronto Raptors beat the Orlando Magic 106-103 in overtime. In the win, Kyle Lowry scored 24 (on just 5-20 shooting), and had eight rebounds and seven assists. Cory Joseph was great off the bench, shooting 9-of-11 for 19 points. In the loss, Victor Oladipo scored 27, and Evan Fournier had 21. Here’s the Toronto Sun reporting:
A visit to the O2 just wouldn’t be right without overtime.
For the second time in three games here, the Raps found themselves providing a deserving English fan base a little more than they were actually entitled.
The last time it took triple overtime and it resulted in a loss to the then New Jersey Nets.
But this is a different Raptors team, a “relevant” team as Masai Ujiri likes to call them, and they proved their GM right with a professional overtime period that included timely shooting, some patient offence and some determined defence to pull out a 106-103 win over the Magic on Thursday.
The Magic had a match for the Kyle Lowry/DeMar DeRozan backcourt but they didn’t have the bench support or the defence the Raptors brought with them across the Atlantic.
And by the slimmest of margins, the Raptors will head back across that ocean with a well-deserved win.