Grizzlies 109 Raptors 102 (OT)
TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors overcame a slow start Wednesday, but Rudy Gay was nearly perfect at the end for Memphis.
The Grizzlies scored the game’s first 13 points and Gay had 29 in total, including eight in overtime, as Memphis beat Toronto 109-102, snapping the Raptors’ eight-game home winning streak.
“When you feel good about something, you just keep going to it,” said Gay, who made four of five shots in OT. “I felt good and I made the best of it.”
Chris Bosh led the way for Toronto with 32 points.
It looked like the Raptors (29-24) were going to keep their home magic going when Andrea Bargnani hit a hook shot with 1:16 to play and Bosh hit a 15-foot jumper to give them a 97-92 lead with 37.9 left.
But after a timeout, the Grizzlies (27-26) came back with O.J. Mayo’s three-pointer with 32.6 seconds to play. Raptors head coach Jay Triano blames the basket on “missed coverage.”
“We knew that they were going to go for a three,” Triano said. “And we had our coverages. We just didn’t react the way we were supposed to.”
Bargnani then missed a 21-foot pull-up jumper with 7.9 seconds left. Mike Conley grabbed the rebound and Zach Randolph, playing with five fouls, made the layup off the fast break to tie the game with 1.9 seconds to go.
Bosh missed a shot at the buzzer to send the game to overtime and Gay took over from there.
“We had a good set for (Bosh),” said Jose Calderon. “We missed and we went to overtime where they played better than us.”
Gay’s fadeaway jumper with 27.9 seconds left in OT made it 107-102 and Mayo made two free throws with 14.5 seconds left to seal it.
Randolph had 24 points and Mayo added 22 for the Grizzlies, who lost 109-95 to Phoenix a night earlier in their first game after the all-star break.
Bargnani scored 14 for the Raptors, who got 12 points from Calderon and 10 each from Amir Johnson and Sonny Weems off the bench.
The Raptors entered the fourth quarter trailing 71-69 and took a 79-77 lead with eight minutes left when Bosh hit two free throws. The Raptors then went ahead 85-81 on four points by Calderon, including a pair of free throws with 6:28 left.
The Grizzlies twice cut the lead to one, but Bosh hit two free throws to make it 89-86 with 4:47 to play after Randolph picked up his fifth foul. Bargnani made it 91-86 with 4:06 left with a turnaround hook shot.
The Raptors were playing for the first time since Feb. 10 because of the all-star break and fell behind by 13 points in the opening quarter.
“We got off to a very slow start and we were very sluggish,” said Triano. “We had a hard time getting it going at all but I liked the way we bounced back.”