LOS ANGELES: Aaron Holiday finished with 19 points and made two clutch three-pointers in overtime as the Indiana Pacers snapped the Toronto Raptors five-game winning streak with a 120-115 win on Monday.
Myles Turner and TJ Warren also had 24 points each, and Holiday added 10 assists in the win over the injury-depleted Raptors who were coming off their biggest comeback win in franchise history.
“It’s a big win for us,” said Holiday, who finished with 19 points in getting the start at point guard for the injured Malcolm Brogdon. “It’s fun playing with emotion, especially in big games.”
Kyle Lowry had 30 points and nine assists for Toronto, who defeated the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday after trailing by 30 points in the third quarter. “We gutted it out, we played our butts off and gave ourselves a chance to win at the end,” Lowry said of the Raptors. “Unfortunately, we came up short.”
But the Raptors, who were missing several starters, ran out of gas on Monday in front of the crowd of 17,100 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse arena in Indianapolis.
This time, Toronto was forced to come back from a 15-point deficit but couldn’t pull out the victory.
Domantas Sabonis scored 12 points and grabbed 17 rebounds for Indiana. Jeremy Lamb and TJ McConnell both had 12 points. Lamb missed the two previous games with a groin problem.
Serge Ibaka had 23 points and nine rebounds, Fred VanVleet contributed 21 points and 11 assists, and OG Anunoby scored 15 points and 12 rebounds for Toronto.
The Pacers got three-pointers from Holiday and Warren to lead by two with 41 seconds remaining in regulation. Lowry’s lay-up tied it 107-107 with 34 seconds left. Lowry then took the final long shot of regulation but missed badly.
Holiday’s three-pointer gave Indiana a three-point lead with just over two minutes left in overtime. He made another three-point dagger with 54 seconds left to increase the lead to four. This was the first meeting between the teams this season after Toronto won two of three from Indiana last season.
The Pacers beat the visiting Raptors 110-106 on January 23 in the final meeting, which saw Indiana star Victor Oladipo suffer a serious knee injury in the second quarter. Oladipo has yet to play this season as he is still rehabbing that injury. The Raptors are playing without key injured players, comprising Pascal Siakam (groin), Marc Gasol (hamstring) and Norman Powell (shoulder).
Simmons nets
triple-double
Elsewhere, Ben Simmons notched a triple-double, and the Philadelphia 76ers handed the host Detroit Pistons their fifth straight loss 125-109.
Tobias Harris made 14 of 21 field goal attempts, including four three-pointers and finished with 35 points. Simmons tallied 16 points, 13 rebounds and 17 assists in the win.
Furkan Korkmaz came off the bench to score 21 points, and Joel Embiid had 20 points and eight rebounds for the Sixers, who shot 54 per cent from the field. Pistons star Andre Drummond was not in the starting lineup. But he came off the bench and scored a team-high 27 points with nine rebounds and three assists. — AFP
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