Raptors hit rock bottom, blow huge lead in loss to Utah Jazz

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A season that has been filled with disappointments may have hit its low on Saturday, with the Raptors giving their loyal fans each a lump of coal.

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Christmas came early for the Utah Jazz on Saturday night in the form of a Toronto Raptors team that gifted the visitors a 126-119 victory out of nowhere.

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Toronto had looked firmly in control in building a 17-point advantage, and a 13-point edge through three quarters, but the Jazz completely turned the game with a huge run to begin the fourth quarter as the Raptors ran out of gas after playing a night earlier in Philadelphia.

Lauri Markkanen and Jordan Clarkson each scored 30 points — combining for 25 of them in the fourth quarter — ruining a career-high-tying 32 points from Scottie Barnes.

Barnes rang off 17 first quarter points and 24 in the opening half and tried to get his team back in it in the fourth. The trouble was the tank was clearly empty by the time the quarter arrived. Utah had not played since Thursday.

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The loss also ruined a big night for Pascal Siakam, not in terms of his play (Siakam struggled, missing 13-of-20 shots, many of them at the rim against a big Utah team) but because of the historic nature of the evening. Siakam joined DeMar DeRozan (675), Kyle Lowry (601), Morris Peterson (542), Jose Calderon (525) and Chris Bosh (509) as the only Raptors players to suit up for 500 games with the team.

“He just loves to play the game. He just loves to compete,” Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic had said of Siakam. “He’s one of those guys. He just looks like he’s coming ready to compete every single night. And I give him a lot of credit for his professional way of finding how to do that. It’s not easy to play 500 games in the NBA. And from what I saw this year, he’s one of those guys that is trying to bring it every single night. And I’m very complimentary of his contributions to the team this year.”

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Rajakovic had also talked earlier in the week about expecting Jakob Poeltl to break out of his slump and Poeltl had done just that in Philadelphia. On Saturday he had discussed pre-game how he fully anticipated the struggling Anunoby to find his game. Sure enough, Anunoby also responded, going off for 14 points in the first two quarters, including three straight baskets as the Raptors broke the game open, for the time being.

“Those guys, they’re fighting through it. And I have a hundred percent belief that OG is going to get back to his shooting form and that he’s going to make shots and that’s going to help our team,” Rajakovic had said. Anunoby stalled like his teammates down the stretch though and finished with 19 points.

Utah nailed 17 three-pointers at a 45% clip, getting particularly hot in the decisive fourth to get the crowd groaning.

Utah was one of the NBA’s feel-good stories at this time last season, exceeding expectations substantially, but had slipped to 11-18 this year and came in ranked 25th of 30 teams in both offensive and defensive efficiency. They left town at 12-18, compared to Toronto’s rough 11-18 mark.

@WolstatSun

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