Raptors' late-game collapse ends their season with devastating play-in loss to Bulls

TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors’ season has come to an end with a crushing 109-105 loss to the Chicago Bulls in a do-or-die play-in game on Wednesday night at Scotiabank Arena.

While the Bulls took care of offence late — primarily on the shoulders of Zach LaVine — the Raptors couldn’t respond as they left points on the board. Each one ultimately proved to be pivotal in a close matchup, as the Raptors squandered a 19-point third quarter lead.

Toronto only hit 18 of their 36 free throws in the matchup, marking the most they’ve missed in a game since 1997. That includes two misses by Pascal Siakam with 12 seconds to go in the fourth, which could have tied the score at 107.

“Super important, I just missed them to be honest,” said Siakam, who finished with a team-high 32 points.

“At the end of the day, it’s going to come down to those free throws. We had a good lead and we didn't execute.”

It was one of the final nails in the coffin, as the Raptors watched another team erase a comfortable lead. This time it was the Bulls, as they stormed back behind their duo of LaVine and DeMar DeRozan.

LaVine was responsible for a 17-point onslaught in the third quarter alone, followed by 13 in the fourth. He credits his ability to get out in transition and play downhill, which served as a turning point, as he attacked both the rim and from distance.

“Obviously when that happened I think the rhythm for the whole team improved,” said LaVine.

DeRozan had similar praise, as the Bulls dug themselves out of a 19-point lead late in the third, to ultimately hold the lead for the remaining five minutes of the game. They would ultimately outscore the Raptors 37-24 in the final frame, after Toronto entered the quarter up by nine.

“We were fine. Nobody panicked,” said DeRozan, who finished with 23 points. “We just knew what we had to do. We put ourselves in that hole and we understood what we had to do to get ourselves out and that is what we did.”

For DeRozan, who’s the all-time scoring leader in Raptors’ history, he made his presence felt throughout the matchup with a pair of thunderous slams — each over Toronto’s next hopeful cornerstone in Scottie Barnes.

His daughter, Diar, also made her presence felt on the game, deciding to scream each time that the Raptors shot a free throw. The tactic also surprised DeRozan, who was initially looking to see if his daughter was alright.

“I owe her some money for sure,” said DeRozan.

Siakam says that he didn’t hear Diar. Instead, along with their scoring punch, the Bulls’ defence pulled through — which has been their identity in the second half of the season, behind difference makers like Alex Caruso.

Siakam and Fred VanVleet started the first half hot, but were ultimately slowed down in the second. While the Raptors as a whole shot 40 percent from the field in the second half, the two combined to shoot 8-22 from in that stretch.

“It's a bad combo, us kind of stalling out a little bit and them staying aggressive and getting more confident and attacking the basket,” said VanVleet.

“We just never really had an answer for that. But you know, you got to give him credit as well, Zach, unbelievable game. It gets tough down there in the stretch, you have to go pull it out.”

It hasn’t been often that Siakam and VanVleet have provided such large sparks in unison. Over the course of the season, they both eclipsed the 20-point mark in only 15 of their 62 games together. Before tonight, they were 10-5 in those games.

Before things tempered off, the two put up their fair share of highlights, including a half court heave by VanVleet to close out the first half.

Despite the offensive punch, the Raptors also got sloppy with the ball in the second half, where they racked up nine of their 14 turnovers. It was one of the factors that contributed to LaVine being able to get out in transition.

Nurse also mentions that the team wasn’t able to respond to the Bulls’ physicality on the perimeter. Aside from those factors, he felt his team played a solid game.

“I thought they played tough. For the most part, they did a good job of trying to share the basketball and make the right plays on offence,” said Nurse. “Just a tough one, I feel bad for them.”

It marks the ending of a rollercoaster season for the Raptors. Upon reflection, Nurse thinks back at the games they lost by a single possession, especially when they opened the season with a “really difficult” schedule. Then there was a stretch where they were hit by injuries, only to be out of rhythm when they got back together.

He finds these factors could have made the difference in the Raptors’ seeding, helping them get out of the play-in tournament. In the end, he does say he’s “proud," especially as the team climbed their way back from being seven games under .500 to finish at an even 41-41.

“We did coach them hard and work them hard to get back,” said Nurse. “I thought we played well enough to win and I just didn't just didn't go our away.”

Siakam looks back at the “tough season” as one of “ups and downs,” where the team “wasn’t consistent enough.” VanVleet, the other team’s leader, shared a similar sentiment.

“We were the 9th seed, we're .500, so what does that tell you?

"It means we won one, lost one, win two, lose two. That's kinda the way it went. There were a lot of different things going on, a lot of noise, and I'm proud of the group for sticking together. We didn’t really have too much negativity inside the locker room as things can go sometimes. I think we just got to be able to learn from it.”

The Raptors had an off-beat season, filled with rumours of the team being torn apart at the trade deadline, to even more recently as Nurse seemed to question his future in Toronto with only a handful of games remaining.

Now the Raptors enter a tumultuous offseason. Jakob Poeltl will become a free agent, Gary Trent Jr. has the option to, while the same goes for VanVleet. Before the 2019 champion makes his decision, he’ll take some time to reflect.

“I'll probably sit in this room for a while. I think you know, a lot of growth and getting better is being able to overcome the obstacles and challenges and accepting, you know, where you come up short, and accepting your mistakes and your shortcomings.

"So probably beat myself up over this one for a while. Let it hurt and let it sink in, and then get back to the drawing board. So probably only like a 14-day window for me. But right now, tonight, it hurts for sure.”

For the Bulls, they'll now head to Miami to take on the Heat on Friday night. The winner of that matchup will be awarded a seven-game series as the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.