TORONTO—Despite losing their home matchup against Philadelphia 75-93 Wednesday, the Toronto Raptors told reporters later they had an easy path to a victory, but their "really good" idea for a comeback only came to them 10 minutes after the final buzzer. "We're kicking ourselves now, because it's so simple when you think about it," said Raptors center Aaron Gray, who, along with his teammates, came to the sudden realization when standing in the locker room showers. "Man, I could have just jumped up and stole the ball when Jrue Holiday made that pass to Elton Brand with 6:54 on the clock and dished it ahead to Andrea [Bargnani] for an easy dunk. Then one of us could have stolen the inbounds, no-looked it to Jerryd [Bayless] in the corner for an open three, forced them to take a contested jumper on the next possession at the buzzer for an air ball, taken it down and set up DeMar [DeRozan] for a backdoor cut off my screen, and boom, we're going into timeout with a one-possession game. I guess it's easy when you think about it now." Despite the incredibly lucid realization, the Raptors admitted they had "absolutely no idea"how the team has won any of its 20 victories this season.

Advertisement