TORONTO

Remember the naysayers calling for Luis Scola's demotion from the starting unit?

They were rather quiet Friday night as Scola almost single-handedly buried the Boston Celtics in nine scintillating minutes of basketball.

That the Celtics would come back and make this a game with a huge third quarter before Kyle Lowry brought the Raptors home with yet another stellar fourth quarter, took nothing away from Scola’s effort, nor the appreciation of his teammates, who managed to have a little fun at their elder statesman’s expense.

“The old man, that’s what the old man do,” DeMar DeRozan said of Scola’s 17 points in nine minutes that put the Raptors on their way to a 105-91 win over Boston, the third consecutive victory over the Celtics this season.

But DeRozan wasn’t done.

“The engine runs well in the beginning, but hey, I tell Scola, he’s like an old-school Cutlass. He gets you where you want to go, but don’t rely on him for any road trips.”

In a nutshell, Scola still has plenty to contribute but, turning 36 in another month and a half, asking for something like that for the 35 minutes DeRozan and Lowry handle regularly is likely asking too much.

Scola, though, isn’t needed to be a scorer every night, but his willingness to play his role in a five-man starting unit that now has 47 wins and appears poised to easily blow past the previous mark of 49 last year with 14 games remaining means enough that coach Dwane Casey has resisted whatever outside pressure has come his way to replace him in the starting five with Patrick Patterson.

“I thought he set the tone (Friday),” Casey said. “He really played with force and got us going. His thing is sustaining it, but I thought Pat came in and did a good job. But in the first quarter, Luis really set the tone with his effort, with his post-ups. He really helped jump-start us.”

Scola, though, will be the first to tell you that scoring at that level really isn’t what this team needs from him to be successful. Sure, it can be necessary once in a while but for the most part, that element of the game will be handled by DeRozan and Lowry.

“ I just have to stay away from extremes,” Scola said. “There will be games where I’m really good and you just have to stay grounded, and there’ll be games where I’m bad and you have to try to keep your composure, too.

“This is a team that we have a bunch of pieces and they all have their role. We have two main guys that we want to shoot all the shots, and they’re the guys that will carry us. And we have a job to do, mainly our job is to make them happy, help them and be around them. There’ll be some games that go your way and there’ll be some other games that go wrong. The games that go that way, hopefully you have a good game and have fun, but the other games you just have to do your job. I’m completely OK with that. This is the closest way, the shortest way to win. That’s what we all want and that’s what’s really fun.”

And that’s exactly what the Raptors are doing of late.

Don’t kid yourself, this four-games-in-five-nights marathon they just finished is gruelling and to get three wins, particularly with the middle two on the road is a testament to how good things are going right now for this team.

Lowry, as usual, saved his best for last, scoring 15 of his team-high 32 points in the final quarter as he helped erase the bad taste of a 33-point third quarter that the Raptors gave up letting the Celtics crawl back in a game they were all but out of in the first half.

Lowry made it his mission in the off-season to come back leaner and lighter and more able to withstand the rigours of an 82-game schedule. That has played into his fourth-quarter heroics this late in the season, but he was quick to point out another reason.

“I think it’s just the ability to play off the ball with Cory (Joseph),” Lowry said.

While Joseph takes on the primary defensive duties of the opposing team’s point guard as well as bringing up the ball, Lowry is provided a little more freedom and he’s been making the most of it.

“It gives me time to roam and chase the ball and (Cory’s) abilities to get to the basket and create for me have just been a good combination. For me, it’s just about being consistent throughout,” Lowry said.

The Raptors will enjoy a day off after the most gruelling part of the regular-season schedule, but will be right back to work on Sunday as they host the Orlando Magic in a 4:30 p.m., tip at the Air Canada Centre.

mganter@postmedia.com