The game was in the balance when DeMar DeRozan had the ball on the wing, the Raptors clinging to a five-point lead with about 90 seconds left.
It was the time, the situation that seemed tailor-made for the prolific scorer, who had been lighting up the Washington Wizards all day and could basically bury them with another bucket.
A second defender moved towards him, as they always do under those circumstances, and DeRozan did the right thing, spying a wide-open Fred VanVleet about 10 feet away and hitting him with an on-time, on-target pass. VanVleet’s three-pointer sealed Toronto’s 100-91 win over the Washington Wizards at the Air Canada Centre.