» Raptors win third straight in ugly game against awful Jazz

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Break up the Raptors — wait, they tried it Friday and it still didn’t work.

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Even without many key players, Toronto won a third straight game, this time 118-109 over the visiting Utah Jazz.

The Raptors did have Scottie Barnes and Immanuel Quickley, and the duo was more than enough to handle the truly wretched Jazz, especially a Utah team missing some of its own key components. Quickley scored a season-best 34 points, Barnes had 22, 12 rebounds six assists and some spectacular blocks and newcomer Jared Rhoden added 14. Collin Sexton and Kyle Filipowski led Utah with 17 points each. Walker Kessler had 25 rebounds for Utah, the third-most ever in a game against the Raptors.

Toronto was coming off a pair of wins in Orlando, but was without starters Jakob Poeltl and RJ Barrett, who were rested for the first game of a back-to-back, injured wings Gradey Dick and Ochai Agbaji, plus big men Jonathan Mogbo and Chris Boucher. The team later lost rookie Ja’Kobe Walter to a right quad strain in the third quarter. Walter had been one of the only Raptors having any offensive success, scoring 14 points in 18 minutes.

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Utah had lost 5-of-6 and was without former all-star Lauri Markkanen, No. 2 scorer John Collins and bench sparkplug Jordan Clarkson.

The first half was as ugly as it gets, with both teams misfiring from all over the floor (Toronto shot 32.7% in the half, Utah 36.4%). The dreadfulness allowed Jazz centre Kessler to collect 18 rebounds in the first half alone.

Toronto led 92-78 after three despite shooting under 40%. Awful Utah free throw shooting (55.6% to that point) helped.

Toronto never trailed in the game and rarely looked threatened despite often deploying lineups with three to five players not in the regular rotation. When the Jazz cut the lead to six in the fourth quarter, the Raptors checked Quickley and Barnes back in and Quickley quickly (sorry) doubled the lead with a flurry of three-pointers.

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The Raptors gave AJ Lawson the first start of his NBA career, a special moment to be sure for the Toronto native, who scored six points, but had a tough shooting night like many of the other participants.

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The game was a “2000s Night” promotion as part of the 30th anniversary of the Raptors. The club welcomed back long-time point guard Jose Calderon, who is in the Top 10 of many all-time categories for the Raptors, and Jason Kapono, the only Raptor to win the NBA’s three-point shootout at all-star weekend.

It was also one of the more sparsely attended contests of the season, no surprise with the participants a combined 36-90 for the year and more interested in improving their lottery odds than actually winning games.

The crowd did manage to loudly boo the American anthem though at the first Raptors home game in over a week, an ode to the ongoing trade war brought on by U.S. President Donald Trump.

@WolstatSun

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