MIAMI—All season the Toronto Raptors have talked about their resiliency, the blossoming ability to fight through hard times so that those moments didn’t become horrible, to not get too high or low.

Now comes the time when that will be put to the greatest test.

Game 7. At home. Again.

With Goran Dragic exploding for 30 points, the Miami Heat did what they had to do Friday night, salvage their season with a 103-91 victory at American Airlines Arena that sets up a win-or-go-home Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference semifinal.

Sunday’s 3:30 p.m. contest will be the second Game 7 for each team; Toronto beat Indiana and Miami eliminated Charlotte in the first round. The winner Sunday opens the conference final Tuesday night in Cleveland.

Your call

“It’s going to be fun, Game 7, two (seed) versus three,” Kyle Lowry said. “We get an opportunity to play on one of the biggest stages there is . . . just go out there and hoop.”

Dragic’s offensive explosion — the ease with which he got to the rim in a 19-point first half was astonishing — was the difference because the Raptors got another great offensive game from their backcourt.

Kyle Lowry, playing the last five minutes of the game with five personal fouls, had 36 points and DeMar DeRozan had 23 but it just wasn’t enough.

“We’ve got to be aggressive,” DeMarre Carroll said. “I don’t feel like we were aggressive tonight. We weren’t up into them like we were back at home and that’s something you can’t do on the road. You come in someone else’s environment, you’ve got to be the aggressive team and we weren’t the aggressive team tonight.”

Dwyane Wade did the predictable and awoke from three bad quarters to finish with 22 points, but the Dragic onslaught was too much for the Raptors.

“They did an excellent job of setting the tempo and the style of play early and we didn’t adjust to it as far as guarding the basketball, containing the basketball, keeping it in front of us,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “They kind of went away from their offence and just were putting their heads down and going one-on-one and we didn’t do a good job of containing the ball.”

The Heat, who have slogged through the first five games with an offence going in slow motion, did get to the pace they wanted in taking early control.

Dragic was able to get to the rim almost any time he wanted in the first half even though the Raptors seemingly had some rim protection in the paint and their 53 points was a series-high for a half.

“Just one-on-one defence, we have to buckle down and not rely on help so much,” DeRozan said. “Man up and play one-on-one defence.”

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A Miami lineup move saw the Heat basically start two guards and three small forwards, inserting Justise Winslow into the game in the role that had been filled by Hassan Whiteside and then Amar’e Stoudemire.

It wasn’t a major factor — although Winslow did score 12 points — but it created some unique lineups; the Heat played ostensibly three point guards in Dragic, Tyler Johnson and Josh Richardson at points and that turned the game into a higher tempo one than many of the previous five.

“Whatever is necessary right now and it’s an absolute privilege . . . to be in a competitive series against the opponent we’re facing right now,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “As a competitor this is what you want, you want the games to have meaning.”

The Heat played only eight players but three backups out-scored Toronto’s bench 24-15. Toronto not getting any scoring punch from other than Lowry and DeRozan was a problem.

“I thought we had some opportunities, some good looks,” Casey said of his backups.

“We had a chance to cut it to six or whatever (with about five minutes to go) and we fumbled the ball out of bounds so we had some opportunities in certain situations but just didn’t take advantage of it.

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“Whoever is on the court has to come in and make a contribution.”

More Raptors on thestar.com:

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DeRozan and Lowry not enough for Raptors in Game 6

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