Thursday night in Milwaukee, the Raptors beat the Bucks 92-89 to win Game 6 and the first round playoff series. Toronto will now play the Cavs, with Game 1 scheduled for Monday in Cleveland. Here’s the Toronto Sun reporting on tonight’s series-clinching victory:
The real test came in the second half when the Raptors had built the lead up to 25 and looked home and cooled out only to watch the Bucks chip away at the lead as the Raptors offence, which had been running so efficiently bogged down like it never has before. The ball wasn’t just sticking. It was stuck and it stayed that way for the final half of the third quarter and the first eight or nine minutes of the fourth.
The run was 34-7 and if panic didn’t set in it was moments away from doing so.
“I don’t know what happened, but all of a sudden they woke up, made a great run and took over the game, had the momentum, had the crowd behind them,” Patrick Patterson said. “We were just discombobulated. A little too selfish on the offensive end, not communicating on the defensive side and they took advantage of that.”
Keeping the panic from overtaking the entire Raptors team was no easy feat and took just about every voice on the bench.
The team leaders, DeRozan and Lowry, were getting plenty of credit for that but so too was Cory Joseph, the only guy outside of Serge Ibaka who has taken an NBA playoff run all the way to its final game.
