Kawhi Leonard, Pascal Siakam have career nights to lead Raptors past Jazz

Kawhi Leonard shimmied around Utah defenders like their feet were rooted to the floor in a masterful third-quarter performance Tuesday.

Leonard scored 19 of his career-high 45 points in the third to lift Toronto 122-116 over the Jazz on New Years Day, sending the Raptors into 2019, and to San Antonio for a big upcoming game Thursday, with a victory.

Pascal Siakam added a career-high 28 points, while Norman Powell chipped in with a season-high 14 points for the Raptors (28-11), who played without Kyle Lowry for the eighth time in nine games.

Jae Crowder topped the Jazz (18-20) with 30 points.

Neither team led by more than four points through a first half that saw seven lead changes before Leonard and the Raptors finally put some distance on the Jazz, one of the NBA’s best defensive teams, in the third quarter. Toronto led 95-85 with one quarter to play.

Back-to-back three-pointers from Crowder sliced the Raptors’ lead to just four points with 4:06 to play, but Leonard muscled to the rim for a basket with 3:30 to play that restored an eight-point advantage. A Rudy Gobert dunk and a Ricky Rubio free throw pulled the Jazz to within four with just under a minute to play. But free throws from Siakam and Fred VanVleet in the waning seconds sealed the victory, and sent the capacity Scotiabank Arena crowd of 19,800 home happy.

Kawhi drops career-high 45 points on Jazz for Raptors win
Lowry, meanwhile, travelled to New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery on Friday to have anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving injections for his sore lower back.

Raptors coach Nick Nurse remains optimistic Lowry is close to returning.

“I think so, yeah, I think so,” Nurse said before tipoff. “It’s now into pain management stage a little bit … Each day we’ll be monitoring him and seeing when he’s going to be ready to go.”

Lowry didn’t practise Monday, but Nurse said the four-time all-star did some shooting Tuesday.

Leonard has scored 20-plus points in 14 consecutive games, the longest streak of his NBA career. He’ll go for No. 15 on Thursday when the Raptors are in San Antonio to take on DeMar DeRozan and Leonard’s former team, the Spurs.

The Raptors closed 2018 with an ugly 95-89 win over Chicago, limping out to 14 first-quarter points. Tuesday’s start was strong in comparison. Leonard had 10 points in the first, including the pullup jumper that gave the Raptors an eight-point lead. They shot 55 per cent in the frame, and took a 26-24 lead into the second.

The Raptors missed all five of their three-point attempts in a see-saw second quarter that saw neither team lead by more than four points. Utah took a 53-51 lead into the halftime break.

Toronto opened the third with a 9-0 run, and eventually stretched its lead to 12 points midway through the quarter. The Raptors shot a sizzling 78.9 per cent in the frame, and connected on all five three-point attempts, including three from Siakam.

The Raptors improved to 4-0 in New Years Day games in Toronto, including last year’s 131-127 overtime thriller against Milwaukee that saw DeRozan score a franchise-record 52 points in the win.