Blown out by 38 points in a Game 5 loss Wednesday that put the Toronto Raptors’ season on the brink, Dwane Casey was at least able to look down his bench and call on Jonas Valanciunas for some extended minutes.
“It was probably the only positive (of the loss),” Casey said this morning, of Valanciunas’s 18:27 of game time. The Raptors centre hadn’t played since Game 3 of the Raptors’ second-round series against the Miami Heat, when he was lost to a badly sprained left ankle.
Valanciunas had nine points in Game 5.
“It was good to get him some run, get him some game-conditioning minutes, that was a positive,” Casey said.