Raps Close Road Trip In Familiar Way

Add another to the walked wounded list. Andrea Bargnani would take a seat for this one with bone spurs. Amir Johnson, Barbosa and Calderon would all go not at 100%. While Reggie Evans remained out with problems with his surgically repaired right foot. Raptors would come in off worst loss in my opinion ever. But they did have success playing the Clippers in L.A. They have won 4 straight heading into this one vs Staples secondary basketball tenant.

Not a surprise that the Raptors had a much better effort in this one. They would play a scrappy first half and despite having no Bargnani and Demar DeRozan struggling they still got off to a 21-18 lead after the first quarter and would hang in for at 44-43 halftime lead. They were doing a surprisingly nice job dealing with Blake Griffin. It was a sloppy and scrappy affair with both teams showing at times why they would be heading to the lottery and not the playoffs. Clippers were shooting just 40.9% at the half and Raptors hoovering around 38%. Far from an instant classic.

Raptors were getting one of the better efforts from Ed Davis from him this season. Perhaps his best performance when all was said and done. The Raptors would build up a pretty decent lead by the time the 4th quarter had rolled around. They had a 7 point lead after 3 and they built that to 10 at one point near the mid point of the 4th. But as often happens the Raptors let is slide away. Griffin after a pretty quiet night by his standards would come alive late and lead the Clippers to the 94-90 win. Davis had 21 and 11 for a double double to lead the Raptors while Griffin by the end of the night had a pretty nice evening with 22 and 16.

Demar DeRozan struggled in his return home to L.A. He would get it going a little late but in the end for the first time since January was held under double digits scoring. DeRozan at one point was 1-11 in this one and would end up 3-15 with just 7 points. He did do some other things with 6 rebounds and a couple steals but it was a bad night for the kid from Compton California. Calderon was doing a solid job as a scorer despite just 2 assists he dropped in a much needed 16 points given the circumstances. Raptors really lost this game on the glass getting out rebounded 51-40. Another failure down the stretch and another loss bringing the total to 53 losses and counting with 9 games to go. They will not beat the record for losses in a season at 66 but they are looking like they will be in neighbourhood before all is said and done.

Here is the boxscore that will show you that the Clippers outscored the Raptors 28-17 in the final quarter.