Toronto Suffer Miami Heat - Game 6

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Goran Dragic scored a postseason career-high 30 points, Dwyane Wade added 22 and the Heat rode a small lineup to a 103-91 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Friday night, tying their Eastern Conference semifinal series 3-3.

“Last year at this time we were all on vacation,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “So often in this business people tend to want to search for the easy route. There’s usually not an easy way in a seven-game series, certainly not with a second and third seed going against each other. This is the path … and now we’ve pushed it to a Game 7.”

It comes Sunday in Toronto. The winner will head to Cleveland for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals on Tuesday night. Both the Heat and the Raptors won a Game 7 in the first round.

Kyle Lowry scored 36 points for Toronto, on 12-for-27 shooting. DeMar DeRozan added 23 for the Raptors, but their teammates combined to shoot 14 of 34 from the floor and manage 32 points.

“We came here to try to win the game,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “We didn’t come here with a seven-game series in mind. It’s been a great series, they’re a championship-caliber team, well-coached team, but we came in here to try to win the game. We didn’t come in here wanting a Game 7.”

Joe Johnson had 13 points, Justise Winslow added 12, and Josh McRoberts scored 10 for the Heat. But now they need a win on the road, or else the season ends Sunday.

“We played all year to get 56 wins and be the No 2 seed in the East and get home court in this type of situation,” Lowry said. “It’s going to be fun. Game 7, two versus three, get an opportunity to play on one of the biggest stages there is.”

Dragic shot 12 of 21, Wade blocked a game-high three shots and the Heat – despite some serious size deficiencies with injured starting center Hassan Whiteside still out – only lost the rebounding battle 43-41.

“I knew this guy to my left was going to have an amazing performance tonight,” Wade said, sitting alongside Dragic postgame. “You could tell he was on the brink of one.”

Neither team divulged its starting lineup until warmups were under way. The Heat had reason for subterfuge, after choosing a super-small starting five of Dragic, Wade, Johnson, Luol Dengand Winslow.

The Heat used eight players – the tallest being McRoberts, at 6-foot-10. The average height of the others was just under 6-6.

“They made a great adjustment,” DeRozan said. “Give them credit.”

Deng jumped center and Winslow got his first playoff start, three games after sitting out Game 3 entirely. The Heat like using the term “positionless basketball” and Winslow epitomized it early -- in a 60-second span, the rookie guarded Raptors center Bismack Biyombo (“that’s what we lift weights for,” Winslow quipped afterward), brought the ball up like a point guard and made a corner 3.

“Justise did an amazing job,” Dragic said.

Whiteside, watching from the locker room, was thrilled.

“The guys played really well,” said Whiteside, who will fly with the Heat to Toronto but said he will not play Sunday. “Goran got in the paint a lot and made it tough on their guys and D-Wade did D-Wade stuff.”

Dragic scored 14 in the second quarter, helping Miami take a 53-44 lead at the half. The lead got to 13 in the third, Dragic again coming up big with a three-point play followed by a jumper. And when Toronto got within six early in the fourth, Dragic and Wade scored the next six points to keep Miami in control.

“I didn’t want to go home to Europe,” Dragic said. “Still want to be here.”

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Raptors Snatch Magic Win at O2

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The Toronto Raptors snatched a 106-103 overtime win against the Orlando Magic at the O2 Arena on a night when the NBA commissioner Adam Silver hinted a future All-Star Game could be played in Europe.

The Raptors, beaten twice in London on back-to-back nights by the New Jersey Nets in 2011 including a triple-overtime epic, squandered three double-digit leads but came good in the extra period to keep up their recent hot form, recording a fourth straight win.

Kyle Lowry led the way with 24 points while his fellow All-Star DeMar DeRozan added 13 points and 11 rebounds for Toronto.

DeRozan, a veteran of that 137-136 loss to the Nets five years ago, admitted he had some bad memories when the game when the game went to overtime.

“I thought, how ironic,” he said. “But it was a great game. The last time we played here it was a great game, both teams wanted to win, the crowd was into it, and it was the same tonight. We put on a great show. I’m glad we got a win out of it though.”

There was another star-studded, sell-out crowd on hand at the O2 for what was the sixth regular-season game to be played here in as many years, and Silver described the atmosphere as being like a “European All-Star Game” before suggesting the real thing could one day be staged on this side of the Atlantic.

“We would love to figure out a way to do it,” he said. “Logistically it’s very difficult to travel to Europe and travel home from Europe.

“No question it’s something we would like to figure out a way to do at some point, I think it would be fantastic experience for everyone.”

Silver ruled out adding European franchises any time soon, saying “this doesn’t feel like the right time”, but reaffirmed the NBA’s commitment to staging events in London and potentially expanding the series.

The Raptors may have banished their London demons to keep the win streak going, but their coach Dwane Casey was not happy with how they went about it.

He saw his team overcome an early deficit but they allowed Orlando to rally three times, and it was the Magic who had opportunities to snatch victory in the final seconds of regulation.

“We did not play well,” he said. “It was one of our worst games in the last couple of weeks. We knew it would be a dogfight coming in. No lead is safe because of how hard they play and we need to be smarter on both ends of the floor.”

Though both scored in double figures, Lowry and DeRozan shot poorly, with Lowry hitting on five-of-20 from the field and DeRozan four-of-19. Their coach, however, was not interested in any excuses about jet lag or heavy travel schedules.

“You can have any excuse you want to,” he said. “If you’re playing on the moon you’ve still got to come out with force.”

For the Magic it was a sixth loss in seven, with the frustration only intensified by how close they came as coach Scott Skiles dismissed the notion of taking any positives from the trip or the game.

“We played better in the second half than we’ve been playing but there’s a reason they’re wins and losses,” Skiles said. “One goes on the left, one goes on the right and this goes on the right as a loss. We can talk to some guys individually about things they did well but the first half was just unacceptable.”

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Toronto Suffer King James

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LeBron James fought through a sore back to score 32 points, Chris Bosh added 18 and the Heat used another strong defensive effort to beat the Toronto Raptors 93-83 on Monday night. The win pushed the two-time defending NBA champions percentage points ahead of the struggling Indiana Pacers in the race for the No. 1 seed in the East.

"It doesn't feel like anything," James said. "The standings are what they are. We want to play the best we can and the fact that we are in first place, I think that's pretty cool but we've got so much work to do. We've got too much work to do. We've got guys that need to get healthy. We haven't even talked about it. We probably won't talk about it. We've got to play the season out."

Chris Andersen scored 13 points on 5-for-5 shooting and Mario Chalmers added 12 for Miami (51-22), which was again without Dwyane Wade (hamstring), Greg Oden (back) andRay Allen (flu).

Indiana (52-23) lost at home earlier Monday night to San Antonio, 103-77.

"The No. 1 seed is the last thing on our minds right now," Pacers coach Frank Vogel said after his team's loss.

The Heat -- who were three games out in the East after losing at Indiana on Wednesday -- are basically saying the same thing.

Sure, it's a neat perk -- Heat coach Erik Spoelstra called it an "ancillary" effect of hard work -- and Bosh acknowledged the outcomes Monday merited a very subtle fist-pump from him. But there's still plenty of time for things to change, and Miami is thinking more about getting those who are hurt and sick back into rhythm with the playoffs coming up in less than three weeks.

"We're aware of it," Spoelstra said of the standings. "It's not that we're naive to it. I didn't talk about it. ... These were pros that were getting ready for battle and it's that type of focus, that's the type of thing we're trying to stress right now, the process of building those habits. The results will follow. They tend to take care of themselves."

Greivis Vasquez scored 17 points, DeMar DeRozan scored 16 and Jonas Valanciunas finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds for the Raptors. Steve Novak added 13 for Toronto, which lost Kyle Lowry to a sore left knee late in the third quarter after he collided with James.

"It was a hard-fought game -- basketball at a high level," Vasquez said. "We lost it in the third period. We came out too relaxed. We didn't attack the basket. Everything worked for them."

Lowry's knee swelled, Raptors coach Dwane Casey said, and that hardly sounds like good news for a team fighting for the No. 3 spot in the East.

"He bumped knees," Casey said. "It puffed up a little bit. X-rays were negative. We just have to wait and see how he is tomorrow."

The Heat were down 10 midway through the second quarter, and then closed the half on a 22-9 run to take the lead and never trailed again.

Bosh had consecutive baskets in the fourth quarter, the last of them an easy breakaway, to put Miami up by nine. A possession later, after a 3-pointer from Vasquez, James split a pair of defenders on the dribble and found Toney Douglas for a right-wing 3. And after a stop on the ensuing Miami trip, James got a wild layup to fall while getting fouled.

Moments later, the Heat could look at the standings and finally see themselves on top.

"We could still lose it," Bosh said. "That reality is there. We just have to keep concentrating on what we've been doing."

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