Powell scores career high as Raptors scrape by Magic for 6th straight win
Nick Nurse earns victory in 100th regular-season game as Toronto head coach
The Toronto Raptors weren't getting shots to fall. So they concentrated on defence and waited for somebody to get hot.
Norman Powell delivered in the third quarter, scoring 19 of his career-best 33 points and the Raptors won their sixth straight game, beating the Orlando Magic 90-83 on Friday night.
"Sometimes a guy just finds a groove in the middle of the game when nobody else has any flow going," said Fred Van Fleet, who added 22 points for the Raptors. "So you want to ride that out as long as you can. Norm took over the offence by himself."
Powell was 7-for-9 shooting in the third quarter, including three 3-pointers. He said he was just reacting to the Raptors' seven-point halftime deficit, the result of 31 per cent shooting that included 5 of 24 from 3-point range.
WATCH | Powell's big game helps Raptors beat Magic:
"You stay in the moment and let plays come to you, continue to shoot and live with the result," Powell said. "Everybody is being really tied into what we are doing [defensively], how we are changing defences, where we need to be, helping one another, talking, communicating, coming out of timeouts. When we see where an adjustment needs to be made, we were able to pick it up in the second half."
The Raptors won despite 4-for-22 shooting by Pascal Siakam, the NBA's ninth-leading scorer. Siakam finished with 10 points and 13 rebounds.
Evan Fournier scored 19 points for Orlando, which has lost four of five. Markelle Fultz added 15 points. Aaron Gordon, who played 32 minutes for Orlando after missing three games with a right ankle contusion, had eight points and eight rebounds.
The Magic shot 35 per cent for the game and had 24 turnovers.
"You're just not going to beat a team that good turning the ball over that much," Magic coach Steve Clifford said. "They help early, they're great with their hands, you take the extra dribble and it's gone. The majority of [the turnovers] were that."
The Magic led by 11 twice in the first half. VanVleet hit a pair of 3-pointers that helped the Raptors cut Orlando's lead to 47-40 by halftime. But he second half was all Toronto, and especially Powell.
"We had a stretch of 12 consecutive stops in the third quarter," Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. "That's about as high as it gets. It was excellent. We didn't shoot the ball well, we didn't play well. I was happy when we got to the locker room only down seven."
Powell scored Toronto's first 10 points in the second half, eight as part of a 13-0 run that gave the Raptors a 60-53 lead late in the third quarter.
Powell's final 3-pointer gave Toronto an 83-72 lead, their largest of the game, with less than three minutes left.