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And still, when the final horn sounded, win No. 46 was in the books, this one by a 101-92 margin.

And excuses? Well, we’ll let Kyle Lowry handle that one.

“I don’t know who makes excuses, but we don’t,” Lowry said after the game. “Nothing we do is an excuse … Our team is unbelievable with just staying in the moment and understanding what we have to do. Nick is really good. People got to start looking at him and giving him some credit for a lot of things we do.

“The way we operate, the way we do things, the way we go about our business, we’re pros. Guys come in and do their job and get their work in. There is a real seriousness to what we do.”

Pascal Siakam says it is just something that has sort of been forced on the Raptors and they have made the best of it.

“I think it’s just a mentality,” he said. “I think going through the season with different scenarios and people out and others not playing, I think we just built that type of mentality that no matter what happens, we just stick together as a team and we try to work the game.

“It’s going to be a long game but the most important thing is just stay together, don’t panic and just keep executing.”

That approach has served the Raptors well all season and Monday night was just one more example of it.

The Raptors took their biggest lead at 10 points in the game a third of the way through the final quarter and looked to be in good shape. Joe Ingles then almost single-handedly took care of that with a couple of three pointers and a runner down the lane.