Lakers snap Raptors’ win streak at five on big night for Scottie Barnes

Monday’s commanding win over the Los Angeles Lakers on enemy turf might have led some to believe the Raptors would have Friday’s return leg at Scotiabank Arena in the bag.

Not Toronto coach Nick Nurse.

The Raptors’ recent history in back-to-back games against the Brooklyn Nets — an emphatic victory the first night, nail-biter the next — ensured Nurse wasn’t taking anything for granted. It didn’t matter that the Raptors were coming off their best road trip in history, while the Lakers were blown out by the Minnesota Timberwolves last time out. Anything could happen.

“I’m kind of expecting something like (Brooklyn),” Nurse said pre-game, four days after a 114-103 Raptors win in LA “That’s just the way it is in this league. There are some things you are battling and all that kind of stuff. I hope we’ll just go out and execute what we are supposed to execute, but we’ll see.”

Nurse would have liked for his comments to be a little less on the nose. But just as he predicted, the game was a back-and-forth affair with 24 lead changes, sometimes sluggish early, often breathless later and a thriller until the end.

A crowd with split allegiances only enhanced the drama as each side battled to make the most noise on every play, every basket.

The game needed overtime to be decided — in the Lakers’ favor, 128-123. It was the biggest lead either team had held since the first half.

Raptors rookie Scottie Barnes continued to prove too hard to handle for the Lakers, putting up a career-high 31 points. He once again did damage early, scoring the Raptors’ first 10 points. By game’s end, he was a thorn in the Lakers’ side, adding six assists and 17 rebounds to that career-best point tally.

Barnes became just the fourth NBA rookie over the last 20 seasons with at least 25 points, 15 rebounds and five assists in a game, joining Ben Simmons, Blake Griffin and LeBron James, according to ESPN Stats.

Precious Achiuwa contributed 18 points and five rebounds off the bench, behind only Barnes, Gary Trent Jr. with 23 points and Fred VanVleet with 20 on the Raptors scoresheet. Their win streak was snapped at five games.

Barnes’ first-quarter contribution didn’t outscore the entire Lakers team like on Monday night. The Lakers held a three-point lead after the first quarter, extending it to four at the half with the visitors helped by improved shooting from beyond the arc, after going a cold 10-for-45 against Minnesota mid-week.

Toronto turned its fortunes around ever so slightly in the third, pulling ahead by one, but it felt from early on that the last gasp would be all that mattered.

That looked like it might happen with 25.7 seconds left in regulation after an errant pass by James, who was a game-time decision to play but finished with a game-high 36 points. His lob miscue toward Avery Bradley in the corner landed somewhere behind the Raptors bench: Toronto ball.

The crowd was on its feet as the Raptors brought the ball down the court, and the building seemed to shake when Trent drilled a three from the top of the arc to give the home team a three-point lead. A couple of missed threes by James and Russell Westbrook worked in the Raptors’ favor at that point, but Westbrook came up with the game-tying shot, his fourth made three — after what seemed like Barnes’ lone miscue of the night, a turnover in the dying seconds — to send the game to overtime, where the Lakers eventually pulled away.

“I thought we had it,” Barnes said, when asked if he thought Westbrook’s shot would go in.

Westbrook, whose three was quickly reviewed, said he pulled his foot back beyond the arc just in time.

The Lakers’ Wayne Ellington told reporters after their loss to Minnesota that he was confident the team would get hot in Toronto and make 20 threes. Ellington — who along with Carmelo Anthony was out Friday night with a non-COVID related illness — was close: 19 threes.

“I think our guys were doing a lot of good things out there and gave themselves a chance to win,” Nurse said. “We probably would have liked to foul (Westbrook on the game-tying three). We had a foul to give. Up three, certainly would have. It’s just kind of hard to do at the moment. I thought it took us about a half to get our legs going. That’s pretty usual after a long trip.”