Friday was bound to be a big night for Leonard Kawhi.
New Orleans Pelicans were playing without their best ball defender Jrue Holiday and their best rim protector Anthony Davis. Both these key absentees from Pelicans allowed Leonard to score the basket quite often on Friday night’s game.
Leonard led the Raptors with his 31 points to win over the Toronto Raptors by 127-104 on Friday night. With this, Raptors have ended their 2-game losing streak.
Leonard said, “I got a bucket of transitions, easy layups, wide open shots and all that got me going a little bit energetic. Tonight was my night.”
As for the Raptors, they were led by Pascal Siakam who scored 19 points while Kyle Lowry added in his 13 points with 12 assists and 11 rebounds.
Lowry said, “We were not forcing our hand on the game in the first half as we should have. For them, they played well in the first half and we figured it out soon. We only had to get our defense a little bit up in the game.”
For the Pelicans, who have now lost two straight games, Frank Jackson scored 20 points while Julius Rendell added in his 18 points with 9 rebounds and Cheick Diallo scored 16 points with 12 boards.
The second leading scorer of Pelicans, Jrue Holiday was out of the game on Friday night because of his abdomen strain and is expected to be sidelined until next week. As for Davis, he was sitting out in this game due to back spasms.
Despite all the missing key players, Pelicans maintained their resistance and kept the game competitive until the third quarter.
Alvin Gentry, Pelicans coach said, “I think we competed and to me, I think that is the most important thing. I don’t care who we put out there.”
Up next, Raptors will be playing against the Miami Heat on Sunday night while Pelicans will be playing against the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday night.
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