Toronto Raptors guard Norman Powell (24) reacts after dunking against the Milwaukee Bucks during the second half of game five of an NBA first-round playoff series basketball game in Toronto on Monday, April 24, 2017.
Powell's insertion into the starting five has so far resulted in two wins, a much-needed confidence-building one in Game 4 and then Monday's blowout. He gleefully teased Powell, saying in a sing-song voice, "You're going to the podium".
"He's a spark plug", Raptors coach Dwane Casey said.
"He's the X factor", Casey said.
Combine that all with the expected good nights from Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan and you get the Raptors best game of the playoffs.
Aside from the Raptors' general history with these things, there's also the fact that this series has been bizarrely unpredictable.
The Raptors failed to close out series in Game 6 on the road a year ago against in and Miami, although they rallied to win Game 7 at home both times.
Powell led six Raptors in double figures.
Casey said you'd have to "take an arm and a leg off (Lowry) before you keep him from playing". Coach Doc Rivers said his son's minutes would be restricted when the first-round series resumes on Tuesday night at Staples Center. "This is the playoffs". I'm going to take the bumps and bruises to be able to go on the floor and be with our guys. He's a legit franchise player and one who probably will lead the Bucks to many playoff wins in the near future.
Toronto Raptors guard Norman Powell reacts after dunking.
Jazz show improvement, but lose Game 3 to Warriors, 102-91
Jazz: Utah continued to have slow starts and shot just 28.6 percent and trailed by 10 at the end of the first quarter. It resulted in the ball getting stuck up by the shot clock and two easy points for Curry to tie the game at 70.
And through the first four games of their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series, the Bucks and Toronto Raptors have proven his point. However, they went 4-for-9 on those same wide-open 3-pointers, and that was more or less the difference in the game. He came in early in the morning, stayed late at night, and pored over film of three-point specialists like Kyle Korver and Larry Bird. It would be, he said, something they could only learn by trying: "We have to walk through that door", he said.
With Toronto leading 77-63 with just over four minutes remaining in the third quarter, Valanciunas blocked a Greg Monroe shot.
The Raptors won by 25 points. "If we don't understand it now, we're never going to understand it", he added. "He could see that guys weren't making shots, so he thought he could do it".
While the gates of the Eastern Conference are not exactly wide open, LeBron James's chokehold on conference supremacy is as weak as it's been in many years.
"I knew they were starting to run off my 3 so I waited a split-second because Giannis ran out super hard", Powell said.
Carroll capped it off in the 3rd, hitting this floater from 19 feet out through contact from Malcolm Brogdon, because why not?
The Raptors raced out to an 11-point lead at the end of the first quarter and that advantage ballooned to over 20 in the second session. The Toronto Raptors are averaging 88.3 points on 39.9 percent shooting and allowing 94.3 points on 43.7 percent shooting.
During the third quarter, the margin would reach 21 points, the first time during the entire series that Toronto has led by more than 20 points. It took the Raptors struggling out of the gate for Powell to earn significant minutes in the playoffs, but now that he has, they're on the brink of advancing to the second round. "Game 6 is a must-win for us". The scuffle, which saw the two slapped with technical fouls, had Valanciunas flexing his biceps and fired up the ACC crowd.
Game 6 will be played Thursday in Milwaukee.
Therefore, a lot of soul searching had to be done heading into Game 4.
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