Close games are welcome stress tests for the Raptors and their marquee players

Nick Nurse was joking a bit last week when he said he wanted his Toronto Raptors to get into a few games with white-knuckle finishes once he had Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry in the lineup at the same time.

Of course, the head coach would prefer a 15- or 20-point win to a buzzer-beater situation but, if a test came, he was interested to see how his top two players would handle it together.

“I think we want to see just some more minutes together, just some more cohesion together,” Nurse said when Lowry returned from a 10-game injury absence.