Kyle Lowry is relishing the prospect of taking on LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers after leading the Toronto Raptors into the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in franchise history on Sunday.
Lowry scored 35 points as Toronto completed a 116-89 win over the Miami Heat to seal a 4-3 series victory — and set up a showdown with James and the Cavs today.
Toronto are to start against Cleveland with the odds stacked against them, having battled through two marathon seven-game series to reach the conference finals.
Photo: Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP
However, Cleveland head into Game One well rested after back-to-back 4-0 sweeps in the previous rounds.
Yet, Lowry said he is looking forward to pitting his wits against the in-form James and the likes of Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
“I’m looking forward to the opportunity to playing against those guys,” Lowry said.
Photo: AFP
“LeBron is one of the best players in the league, Kyrie [Irving] is always a tough matchup, Kevin Love is always a tough matchup, but we’re going to go out there and play our game, try and do our job and see what happens,” he said.
Raptors coach Dwane Casey said the challenge posed by Cleveland is to be “another step for us” as his team chase the ultimate dream of an NBA Finals victory.
“I think we’ve done everything we set out to do, but again, we’re not done yet,” Casey said. “This group is hungry and never say never. I know one thing, our guys will compete.”
Lowry and teammate DeMar DeRozan stole the show as Toronto powered their way to a convincing victory in front of a raucous home crowd at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre.
Lowry had nine assists and seven rebounds, while DeRozan finished with 28 points and eight rebounds as Toronto finally pulled away in the second half.
Congolese center Bismack Biyombo also had a big game for Toronto, scoring 17 points, snaffling 16 rebounds and making two blocks.
Goran Dragic and Dwyane Wade led the scoring for the Heat with 16 points apiece. The Raptors had led 25-24 after an even first quarter, with DeRozan scoring 11 points.
Toronto built a 53-47 lead at halftime, but the real damage was done in a dominant run in the third quarter.
The Raptors poured on the points in a 12-2 burst, stretching their lead to 75-58.
Miami rallied to get within six points as the seconds wound down in the third, but a two-pointer on the buzzer by DeRozan restored Toronto to an eight-point lead heading into the final quarter.
With a first-ever place in the Eastern Conference finals beckoning, the Raptors turned the screw and quickly extended their lead with both Lowry and DeRozan outstanding.
Two Biyombo free throws powered Toronto to a 106-86 lead with just less than five minutes left, leaving no way back for Miami.
DeRozan said Toronto would be ready for the test posed by Cleveland.
“Once you get into the post-season you learn nothing is going to be easy,” DeRozan said. “It gets tougher every single game. It’s just about battling. Nothing is going to be pretty, nothing is going to do the way you want it to go.”
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra paid tribute to the Raptors’ never-say-die approach.
“We tip our hats to the Toronto organization,” Spoelstra said. “You have to respect an organization that has gone through some pain in the playoffs and then to be able to overcome that. It was a heck of a series to be involved with.”
“It’s unfortunate that people thought that this was maybe not the most elegant series, but it was one of the more competitive ones,” he added.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with