Expand / Collapse search
Watch TV
Menu

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2024 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

Sports

Injury-depleted Boston still too strong for Toronto

By Reuters
Published | Updated

Toronto, Canada – BOSTON (Reuters) - Boston's Ray Allen scored 23 points to help the injury-depleted Celtics end the Toronto Raptors' five-game winning streak with a 103-96 victory on Saturday.

Five other Celtics joined Allen in double figures as Boston won for the first time in four games despite being hampered by the absence of starters Paul Pierce (knee), Kevin Garnett (knee) and Rajon Rondo (hamstring) through injury.

"I thought tonight we showed up with an attitude that we're going to find a way to win," Boston coach Doc Rivers told reporters. "We didn't know how but we're going to find it."

Rasheed Wallace added 16 points, Glen Davis 15, and Kendrick Perkins and Tony Allen both tallied 14 for the Celtics in a solid all-round team display. Perkins also had 10 rebounds.

"When some guys are hurt it's your time to step in and show that you can play," said Perkins.

Tony Allen got the start at point guard and delivered seven assists and five rebounds.

"He was great," said Rivers. "He was aggressive when he needed to be."

Chris Bosh paced the Raptors with 25 points and nine rebounds and center Andrea Bargnani added 21 points.

"We let them take us out of our offense a little bit too much," Bosh said. "The chances that we did have to throw the ball inside, we didn't capitalize on.

"Against this team, if you don't go inside and out, you're probably going to shoot low percentage shots from the outside and you're not going to make them all," added Bosh, who made 11 of 15 shots.

Both Bosh and coach Jay Triano said the Raptors needed to learn how to channel their aggression.

"We have to learn how to play like they (the Celtics) did where you play that hard of defense and not have fouls called against you," said Triano. "They played hard defense and they had one foul called against them in the fourth quarter, so we've got to learn how to do that."

The Raptors had 27 fouls for the game and the Celtics 21.

(Reporting by Gene Cherry in Salvo, North Carolina; Editing by Peter Rutherford and John O'Brien)