Community Picks: Cleveland Cavaliers 0% vs Los Angeles Clippers 0%

Grizzlies Lance Stephenson & Matt Barnes, and a handful of Sixers dominate the Wire this week. And the JaMychal Green party may just be starting. Continue to Article

March 13, 2016 3:59:am EST

TORONTO – For three quarters an undermanned Miami Heat squad executed head coach Erik Spoelstra’s game plan to perfection.  Spoelstra said the key to Saturday’s game was to keep DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry off the free-throw line, and through the first three quarters the Raptors’ All-Star backcourt combined for just three free throws, all courtesy of DeRozan. Toronto’s dynamic duo started to get more aggressive in the fourth. Amid a poor 4-of-16 shooting effort from the field Lowry went to the line six times and DeRozan added another trip. The Raptors stretched their lead out to six points in the fourth, but couldn’t put the Heat away. Miami battled and Luol Deng hit a game-tying three-pointer with 3.1 seconds left. DeRozan nearly ended it on the other end with a fall-away jumper as time expired, but his shot went in-and-out. He knew he let the Heat off the hook and he wasn’t about to let them off easy. DeRozan attacked the rim relentlessly in overtime, earning five trips to the free-throw line and sinking seven of his 10 attempts for six of his game-high 38 points in the Raptors’ 112-104 win. It was exactly what Spoelstra had feared. It just took Toronto a little while to get there. “He puts a tremendous amount of pressure on you every single possession to keep him out of the paint and to do it without fouling. He is crafty. He is clever. He’s aggressive,” Spoelstra said of DeRozan after the game. “I thought our guys battled him. They also do it in ways sometimes where you can’t get to him with a second defender. It was a great performance on his part.” In those rare instances where Miami was able to send an extra defender DeRozan’s way, the Raptors’ All-Star swingman was able to pass out of a double-team and find Jonas Valanciunas, who had 20 points and 10 rebounds, wide open underneath the basket. “I think a lot of teams know we’re good at getting to the basket. Teams that [have] shotblockers, they’re going to bring that shotblocker over and I just try to set up the bigs, try to find that open spot and try to find them every time.” Chris Bosh remains out for Miami as he returns to health following another blood clot scare and fellow All-Star Dwyane Wade was a late scratch due to a thigh injury. The Heat, however, did add veteran swingman Joe Johnson after he was bought out by Brooklyn in late February. Johnson consistently gave Toronto trouble during his time with the Nets and that didn’t change now that he’s on a new team as he scored 28 points. While DeRozan put up staggering offensive numbers, it was his work on the defensive end that impressed his head coach Dwane Casey. "That's a man's work tonight ... his defensive effort," said Casey. "If he comes down and gives easy buckets away, at the end it's worthless. But he came down and did a man's job on the other end, defensively, which is huge. He did it tonight on both ends of the floor." The Raptors are comfortably in the two-seed, up six games on the third-seeded Celtics, and are still lingering two games back of Cleveland for top spot in the Eastern Conference standings. It seems just equally unlikely that Toronto is going to be caught by a rival or is going to catch the Cavaliers. With still over a month to go before the playoffs and relatively little to play for,   a period of time Casey often refers to as the dog days of the NBA season, it can be difficult to take much away from these games. In the early parts of the game the action on the court lacked a little energy, and the crowd responded in kind, but in the fourth quarter and overtime the intensity was ratcheted up to a place that reminded the Raptors what it’s like in the postseason. “We got that feeling that every single possession felt like it was a big possession,” said DeRozan. “Those types of games when you’re playing, it’s fun.” And certainly more fun when you’re winning them, too. More NBA coverage from Yahoo Canada Sports: - - - - - - - Israel Fehr is a writer for Yahoo Canada Sports . Email him at israelfehr@yahoo.ca or follow him on Twitter. Follow @israelfehr Continue to Article

March 13, 2016 12:40:am EST

With Kyrie Irving leading the way, the Cleveland Cavaliers have continued their recent mastery of Western Conference teams while putting aside last month's road woes. After playing two of the West's lowlier clubs, the Cavaliers will step up in competition Sunday against the Los Angeles Clippers, one of the league's most successful teams against the East. Irving has totaled 56 points in the first two of four games out West and had 26 in a 120-108 victory against the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday. Continue to Article

March 12, 2016 6:24:pm EST