AP - Toronto had 51 points from their bench and the Los Angeles Clippers had 29 from theirs as the Raptors scored a 112-94 win to extend their streak to eight games.
Kyle Lowry had 21 points and six assists for the Raptors (29-15), who are riding the second-longest winning streak in franchise history. They won nine in a row in 2002.
"I thought that second unit got their togetherness and their rhythm and their chemistry going that we're going to need as we go down the road," Raptors coach Dwane Casey said.
Clippers coach Doc Rivers pointed the finger at his bench, a bench that includes his son Austin.
"It's rare when you lose by 18 points and your starters all have a plus," he said. "That doesn't happen very often. The bench has been good, but tonight they were awful."
Toronto took a 16-point lead in the third quarter, and the Clippers trimmed it to four before the Raptors extended the margin to 22 points during the fourth.
"The starters came back in and cut it to four, we subbed out and it went back to 20, so it was just one of those nights," Rivers said.
The Clippers (28-16) struggled at the free-throw line, going 18-for-30.
The Raptors, who were 18-for-26 from the line, had seven players score in double figures.
Jonas Valanciunas had 20 points and eight rebounds, and DeMar DeRozan added 18 points for the Raptors, ending his string of three consecutive games with 30 or more points.
Terrence Ross contributed 18 points, Cory Joseph 12, Patrick Patterson 10, and reserve centre Bismack Biyombo finished with 10 points and grabbed nine rebounds.
DeRozan gave credit to the contribution from the bench.
"It was big... This whole week and a half, the bench has been great for us, honestly. We have taken advantage of it, and that's been great with the balance that we've been able to sustain throughout these past couple of games."
Chris Paul scored 23 points and distributed 11 assists for the Clippers. J.J. Redick added 17 points, and DeAndre Jordan scored 15 and grabbed 13 rebounds.
The Clippers lost for only the third time in the past 15 games, but those defeats came in the past five games. They are 11-3 without injured forward Blake Griffin.
The Clippers weren't the only loser from the Western Conference with Oklahoma City suffering a surprise loss in Brooklyn.
The lowly Nets shocked the Thunder as Brook Lopez took full advantage of the Thunder playing without regular centre Steven Adams in the post.
Lopez scored a season-high 31 points and added 10 rebounds in the 116-106 victory which snapped OKC's seven-match win streak.
The centre revealed after the win that it was sweet relief to a season that has yielded few wins thus far for the Nets.
"We just weren't happy with the way we've played the last however-many games. There's a good amount of them," Lopez said.
"Utah was kind of the capper. I know for me personally it was just an ugly, ugly game and we wanted to come out and erase our memory of that."
Stand-in Thunder centre Nick Collison knew where the blame lay for the loss and took it on the chin.
"Obviously being short-handed without Steve it's hard for us, but we would've liked to have done better against him for sure," said Collison, who had just three points and four rebounds.
"We weren't able to take away anything that he wanted to do, so that was disappointing."
Share
