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Carlos Delfino had 24 points and Chris Bosh scored 21 plus nine rebounds as the host Toronto Raptors cruised to a 113-85 victory over the New Jersey Nets on Friday night.

The win officially eliminated the Nets from the post-season, one year after Jersey beat Toronto in the first round of the playoffs.

Vince Carter knocks away a shot from Toronto’s Anthony Parker during the first half of the Raptors’ easy victory over New Jersey on Friday night.
(Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

Point guard duo T.J. Ford and Jose Calderon combined for 25 points and 18 assists, splitting time in the victory.  

Vince Carter, as always playing under a chorus of boos, had 21 and Devin Harris 19 for the visiting Nets.

The Raptors improved to 40-39 on the season, and with Philadelphia’s loss to Indiana, moved into a sixth-place tie with the Sixers in the Eastern Conference. Both teams have three games left but Toronto has the tie-breaker.

“Going into the playoffs, we really have to build on this,” Bosh said. “We really have to have solid defence, we have to move the ball on offence, just like you saw tonight. We have to continue to play that kind of basketball.”

Strong third wraps it up

Trailing by two at the half, Toronto came out in the third quarter looking focused and ready to play team defence while improving shot selection and execution on the way to an 83-67 lead.

“We made some minor adjustments,” said Raptors coach Sam Mitchell. “Guys got back into it defensively. We can’t play much better defence than we did in the second quarter.”

Ford, who had just two points and four assists in the opening half, poured in a dozen in the third and added four more helpers.

The club also went to the line 11 times after only nine visits in the first 24 minutes, adding 10 more points from the stripe.

The Raptors outscored New Jersey 37-19 in the third.

Another slow start

Once again, the Raptors got off to a slow start, this time because of strong Nets defence and their own poor slot selection.

Carter had nine points and three rebounds to lead a New Jersey club that was allowed to shoot 60.9 per cent from the floor on the way to a 30-18 lead after the first 12 minutes.

Nenad Krstic and Harris each dropped six points.

Bosh led Toronto with nine points and a couple of rebounds.

Calderon leads comeback

That dozen-point gap became just two by halftime, however, thanks almost entirely to Calderon and Delfino, both coming off the bench.

Calderon scored six points and added five assists, especially finding passes to Delfino fruitful as the forward hit four of five three-pointers in the second quarter on the way to 14 points in that frame.

At the same time, the Raps cut New Jersey’s shooting rate down to 48.8 percent and raised their own from 31 in the first quarter to 42 overall into the dressing room.

“It’s extremely disappointing,” Nets coach Lawrence Frank said. “After having six years of tasting post-season to not play in the post-season is extremely disappointing. We apologize to our fans, to
our ownership that we did not fulfil our responsibility… We feel like we let a lot of people down, this won’t ever happen again.”

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