Opinion | Raptors-Suns provide some top-notch entertainment for second time this season

The triple overtime game in Miami was better and I think the Suns at Raptors game was better and there have probably been a couple of others just as good as last night’s gem out here in Phoenix.

But there haven’t been too many and if you invested your time in Toronto’s 117-112 win, you were rewarded and it would have been worth it if the outcome favoured the other team.

There were 10 lead changes, 10 times the game was tied, the Suns never led by more than five and it was just a tough, intense, well-played game.

And here are some last-gasp thoughts about it.

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THREE POINTERS

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Welcome back

We were all over the big night for Gary Trent Jr. in the quick game over piece – the NBA corrected its quick box, too, to get him to 42 points after originally posting 40 – but we never got a chance to insert a quote for him before things shut down back home.

Here’s the best and a bit of glimpse of what he thinks of himself.

“I haven’t really considered myself a shooter,” he said. “I feel like I’m a scorer who can shoot. It’s great, obviously, when you’re shot is falling. You’re gonna have some highs and lows. Stay working on your craft. Stay believing in yourself and you’re gonna take care of yourself.”

That, he did.

It was like an old-time Trent showing, every time he rose up to let fly, you could see thought it was going in and his teammates did, too.

Not sure how sustainable it is but it’s a welcome sight for this team that needs as much good shooting as it can get.

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It’s been a while …

Since Raptors fans have seen Bismack Biyombo have that kind of impact on a game and it probably didn’t feel too good when he was blocking shots, changing others, grabbing rebounds and scoring put-back baskets in a very impressive seven-minute stretch for the Suns.

But that was not his most impressive or important contribution on the night.

This really had nothing to do with the game but it has to be mentioned: Biz is donating his entire 2021-22 salary to build a hospital in his Democratic Republic of Congo homeland.

That’s pretty damn cool and I don’t want to hear anyone make light of the donation in comparison to what Biz has made in his career because a million and a half bucks is nothing to sneeze at.

And, yeah, when they played this on the scoreboard in the second half, I applauded when it was over.

Biz is one of the nice guys and that’s a first class gesture he made.

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Easing some load

Dalano Banton only played 9:46 and less than four of them came at the start of the fourth quarter but he did what he had to do, which was give Fred VanVleet some time off.

Nick once again got Banton in the game for VanVleet in the first quarter and also rested Fred for the final three minutes of the first half because they are managing Fred’s time.

“I think it was just managing the minutes a little bit, trying to try to buy some for the second half and it seemed to be going okay, and we probably stole a few minutes there,” Nurse said. “We couldn’t steal any in the fourth, that’s for sure. So it was good thing we did that, I think.”

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All right, I’ve got a late morning flight to Denver, an early story to figure out before a game to worry about there tonight so that means I’m not likely get to Ye Olde Mailbag until post-game or even Sunday morning.

That means if you want to send something along, click on askdoug@thestar.ca today and it’ll get taken care of.

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