Toronto Raptors DeMar DeRozan Upset About His Play and Benching
DeMar DeRozan the star guard for the Toronto Raptors was upset on Saturday about being benched over the final 14 minutes of hits team’s loss in Game 3 of the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
DeRozan hit just 3 of his 12 shots and scored eight points, a low for this postseason, as Cleveland attacked the Raptors high scorer with double teams forcing him to give the ball up.
Cleveland’s head coach Ty Lue said his team’s primary game plan on defense was to limit DeRozan and give more room to guard Kyle Lowry, who ended the game with 27 points.
Toronto trailed by 16 points when head coach Dwane Casey took out DeRozan. The Raptors slowly rallied with a different group of players on the court and eventually were able to tie the game with eight seconds remaining before Cavaliers star LeBron James scored the winning basket as the buzzer sounded.
DeRozan called being benched extremely difficult as he wanted to be on the court helping his team and not watching from the bench. However, he did give credit to his teammates who worked hard and gave themselves an opportunity to win.
Following the game, Casey did not talk about his decision to sit DeRozan, but did hint that the decision was not only about the poor shooting by DeRozan.
Casey said that even when a player has a bad shooting night he can do other things to help his team win such as defend, but those nights will happen.
Casey added that DeRozan had a difficult night but was not the reason the team lost. He called his players professionals and knows DeRozan will bounce back.
Casey decided to play OG Anunoby and CJ Miles primarily late in the game, Anunoby hit a three-pointer to tie the score with just eight seconds remaining. Miles scored 13 points and grabbed six rebounds.
DeRozan was the leading scorer during the postseason for Toronto entering the game with an average of 27.8 points per game.
DeRozan said during the moment it hurt especially adding in that the team lost, he has another game and will get another opportunity, which is what matters most.
