Story By: Erin Zollars
Photos By: Sol Tucker
Toronto, Ontario–
If the Wizards were going to try and get back on the radar in this series, they needed a must win tonight in Toronto, except they looked as they were completely lost and off course starting in the first quarter of the game.
Prior to the game tonight several players said that Demar DeRozan needed to step up for his team and become the leader that everyone knew existed for the team. Tonight he did just that along with a little bit of help from his crew from the North.
DeRozan matched his career playoff-high with 37 points, Jonas Valanciunas had 19 points and 14 rebounds and the Raptors.
For the Wizards, they continued to struggle to find a balance of scoring to help John Wall, who saw his team get a mix of scoring from different players, but it was just not enough for the red hot Raptors, who came to bury the Wizards early in this game.
Wall scored 29 points, Mike Scott had a career playoff-high 20 and Ty Lawson 14 for the Wizards, who host Game 3 on Friday night.
“We’re the team that’s in the hole, we’re the team that’s desperate, but we have a lot of confidence,” Wall said. “We’re not down on ourselves at all.”
The series shifts back to D.C on Friday night, where the Wizards have a must win scenario to stay alive and force a possible Game 5 next week, or if they lose both games at home this weekend, it is going to be a long season of what-ifs for the team that had so many hopes with Wall returning for the playoffs.
Trailing 100-90 to begin the fourth quarter, the Wizards cut it to 108-103 with 7:52 left on back-to-back 3-pointers by Scott and Lawson, and a pair of free throws from Wall.
Absent from the game tonight was a presence by Bradley Beal in the scoring column. He missed 8 of 11 from the field and finished with just 9 points.
