DeRozan’s near-record night at the line beats out Lillard’s 50
Friday night’s contest between the Toronto Raptors and Portland Trail Blazers stood out as a matchup of two of the NBA’s best backcourt combos. Toronto’s Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan and Portland’s Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum have all emerged as elite scorers at their positions, with both duos leading their teams to levels above preseason projections.
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All four exceeded expectations at Air Canada Centre, although two shone above the others. We’ll start with DeRozan, who nearly put up a new NBA record at the free-throw line. The All-Star shooting guard went only 7-of-19 from the field, but he went to the line an astonishing 25 times to end up with TKTKTKT points. Even more remarkably, DeRozan hit the first 24 attempts, which would have broken Dominique Wilkins’s 24-year-old record for the most free throws in a game without a miss.
DeRozan misfired on his 25th freebie to lose his chance at history, but even that one ended up helping the Raptors. Up two points after the first free throw with only 0.9 seconds on the clock, DeRozan missed (apparently unintentionally) to force Mason Plumlee into throwing a 91-foot heave. He did not come close, and the Raptors finished up a 117-115 win to continue a franchise-record run of 12 straight at home.
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DeRozan missed out on breaking Nique’s mark but does now have the Toronto record for most consecutive free throws made in a single game and set career highs for attempts and makes. He can at least partially thank a very tightly called first half that featured 34 fouls between the two teams. However, DeRozan attempted 14 of his free throws in the second half, which featured 31 fouls itself.
Yet DeRozan’s night was nearly overshadowed by another huge performance from Damian Lillard, who has been incandescently hot since his All-Star Game snub. Lillard put up 22 points in the fourth quarter, including two three-pointers in the final 20 seconds to force Toronto into high-pressure free throws. He finished with 50 overall (16-of-28 FG, 6-of-13 3FG, 12-of-13 FT), falling just one point short of the career-best 51 he scored against the Golden State Warriors two weeks ago.
Lillard has now scored 30 on nine occasions since February 1, the most in the league. He also has two of the Blazers’ eight 50-point games in history over his last nine appearances.
It just wasn’t enough to top the Raptors on a night when their own stars were so terrific. In addition to DeRozan, Lowry scored 28 points (8-of-15 FG, 3-of-5 3FG, 9-of-15 FT) and expertly closed out the game with several big buckets. McCollum was very good, too (24 points on 8-of-17 FG and 4-of-5 3FG), but the Raptors had more role players step up and came away with the victory.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
