At the end of the third quarter, he rifled a ball into the stands. During a pair of free throws late in the fourth quarter, he stood alone near midcourt, angry, frustrated, down.

At the end of game, he was as hot as he’s ever been in his years as a Raptor, walking menacingly toward the Denver bench (“Just a little misunderstanding,” he’d say) before being ushered to midcourt by Nuggets coach Brian Shaw and then off the court by the Raptors’ chief of security.

Things are not good for DeMar DeRozan, nor are they good for his teammates and there is a sense an explosion is in the offing if things don’t improve rapidly.

DeRozan and his team finished a season-long four-game homestand with a 112-98 drubbing administered by the Nuggets before a tiny Air Canada Centre audience announced at 16,290 on Sunday afternoon.

The Raptors had done what they’ve done far too many times in this young NBA season — they played as poorly as possible at the most inopportune moments, allowing the Nuggets to score 36 fourth-quarter points and pull away for a ridiculously easy win.

DeRozan, who along with Amir Johnson is the team’s longest-serving player and this year by far its best performer, is fed up.

You see it in the body language. You hear it in the spoken word. It was on display for all to see as Toronto fell to 6-10 on the year and 1-3 on this homestand.

“I’m frustrated. . . . I hate it, I hate it with a passion and we just have to figure it out, turn it around on the road,” he said.

That will be easier said than done, of course. The Raptors haven’t played a full 48-minute game in more than a week and there seems to be little indication a quick turnaround will be possible.

“It is correctable,” DeRozan insisted. “We shouldn’t keep doing the same (things) over and over until we realize we’re doing something wrong. We have to understand what we’re doing out of the gate and correct it on the run.

“We can’t wait until the next game or the next practice. We have to get this right. We’re professional, we have to get it going from the get-go.”

The Raptors actually started fast against the Nuggets, up by as many as 15 in the first half as a revised starting lineup that had Tyler Hansbrough in for Johnson seemed to play with energy and purpose.

But the bench was awful — outscored 73-9 by Denver, the most points a Toronto team has ever surrendered to one group of subs in franchise history — and the starters faltered as well.

There was no overt finger pointing and no one blew up entirely after the game but the level of anger, disappointment and frustration was palpable.

“Sometimes we’re a step late, we turn our heads, everything,” DeRozan said “Whatever it is, we have to fix it, it’s on us to fix it and correct it. We can’t let teams execute whatever they want to run late in the game.

“We’re right there. We’re the ones that’s doing it, nobody’s making us miss our coverages or anything like that. It’s on us.”

It was hard to determine which facet of the game was worse for the Raptors. They allowed the Nuggets to shoot 51 per cent from the floor but Toronto also had only 18 assists on 35 baskets and shot 40 per cent as a team.

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“We’ve got to start trusting the pass, moving the ball and trusting it, making the next pass,” said coach Dwane Casey. “That’s where our problems start on the offensive end. When we do that, we’ve shown we can play with people but when we don’t, it gets ugly.

“Until we do that, we’re going to feel this way, whether it’s frustration, disappointed, hurt. Guys have to decide how they want to play.”

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