Raptors beat Nets, end road playoff skid
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Brooklyn, NY (SportsNetwork.com) - A hot start, a hard-nosed finish, a tied series.
The Raptors are headed back to Toronto with home-court advantage.
DeMar DeRozan had 24 points, Kyle Lowry scored 22 and the Raptors beat the Brooklyn Nets 87-79 in Game 4 on Sunday for their first road playoff win in almost 13 years.
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The Raptors tied the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal series at 2-2 heading into Wednesday's Game 5.
They opened the game with a 13-2 run and ended it with a 9-0 flourish, holding the Nets scoreless for almost five minutes at the end to snap a 13-game road playoff losing streak.
"They're a competitive group. We've seen that all season," said forward Paul Pierce, whose Nets finished four games behind the Raptors in the Atlantic Division. "This is a group that's not going to back down."
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Lowry stirred the offense early, threading a bounce pass to Jonas Valanciunas for a dunk and knocking down a 3-pointer several feet behind the arc to cap the game-opening run.
And when the third-seeded Raptors needed a big play late, their point guard was there again.
Lowry, playing on a sore knee, made a running hook shot over Kevin Garnett for a six-point cushion with 1:13 left.
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Lowry and DeRozan were a combined 14-of-36 from the field, but neither team shot the lights out. The Raptors shot 41.3 percent from the field -- just a tenth of a percent better than Brooklyn. DeRozan scored 20 of his 24 points in the first half.
Amir Johnson added 17 points in the win and Greivis Vasquez had nine points and a game-high nine assists off the bench.
Pierce scored 22 points to lead the Nets, Mirza Teletovic added 12 off the bench and Garnett and Deron Williams had 10 points apiece.
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Toronto held Joe Johnson to just seven points in almost 42 minutes.
Asked what they did to shut down Williams and Johnson, Raptors coach Dwane Casey chuckled.
"If I tell you then I'm telling everybody. This isn't my first rodeo," he said. "Our guys executed pretty well."
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The Nets, after trailing by as many as 17 points in the second quarter, took their first lead 2 1/2 minutes into the third on a Garnett layup. They were up by five before an 8-0 Raptors run, punctuated by Lowry's 3, gave the Raptors the lead back.
Teletovic's shot at the buzzer tied the score at 67-67 going into the fourth quarter and the Nets had a one-point lead after two Garnett free throws with 4:58 remaining -- their last points.
DeRozan hit two foul shots after that and Vasquez knocked down a 3-pointer.
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The Raptors were clinging to the four-point lead when Pierce spun into Amir Johnson on the block and was whistled for a charging foul. Lowry drained his hook shot at the other end after that and Shaun Livingston missed a layup for Brooklyn.
"It shouldn't happen, but I thought we rushed a lot," said Pierce. "You get in a playoff situation, one guy, or two or three guys want to do it on their own instead of just running the offense. I thought we got caught up in that today."
It was the first road playoff win for Toronto since a Game 1 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers in the conference semifinals on May 6, 2001.
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The Raptors -- in the playoffs for the first time in six years -- shot almost 62 percent in the first quarter. Led by Amir Johnson's 11 points, they took a 35-22 lead into the second.
They held their double-digit lead while Lowry sat out the first five minutes of the second quarter -- a trainer appeared to be massaging his sore right knee on the sideline -- but a 9-0 run near the end of the half led by Pierce helped the Nets pull within 51-44 at the break.
Game Notes
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Patrick Patterson scored nine for the Raptors and Livingston had nine points for the Nets ... Lowry was 3-for-8 on 3-pointers and Pierce went 3-for-7 ... The Nets, in the playoffs for the second season in a row after a five-year absence, haven't been past the first round since 2007.