Chris Boucher (37 points) Highlights vs. Greensboro Swarm – Box Score
Warriors' Steph Curry could make return vs. Raptors – Sportsnet.ca
Curry, who has missed the last eight games due to a strained left groin, was re-evaluated by the team’s medical staff and is expected to resume practicing with the team next week. He is averaging 29.5 points, five rebounds and 6.1 assists on the season while shooting a blistering 49.2 per cent from three-point range.
The Warriors have struggled in the absence of the league’s two-time MVP, losing four straight games for the first time since Steve Kerr took over as head coach, before snapping out of it with a 125-97 win against the Portland Trail Blazers Friday night.
Golden State sits at fourth in the Western Conference with a 13-7 record on the season heading into Saturday’s action.
Sunday NBA preview: Miami Heat at Toronto Raptors | The Star
KEY MATCHUP
Whiteside/Valanciunas
Whiteside sat out practice Wednesday to manage knee tendinitis, but played against the Chicago Bulls on Friday night. He’s putting up 14 points a night and leads the league with 3.1 blocks a game. Valanciunas, despite playing a career-low 19.5 minutes per game, is racking up numbers that rival his career-high averages in points (12.8) and assists (1.2).
Miami HEAT at Toronto Raptors Game Preview | Miami Heat
How are the Toronto Raptors different this year?
Couper: Toronto’s big move this offseason was to trade DeMar DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl to the San Antonio Spurs in exchange for Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green. The Raptors had been one of the Eastern Conference’s better teams for the past few years yet had consistently run up against the wall in the postseason known as LeBron James. So, they shook up the core of their team to add one of the best players in the league. Leonard, back and healthy again after an injury-plagued final season in San Antonio, is playing as well as ever as he’s stabilized Toronto’s balanced offense and had his usual defensive impact. Don’t discount Toronto adding Danny Green as part of that same deal, though. Green has long been one of the league’s premier role players and he adds to an already deep roster of dynamic two-way players. This Raptors group has very few weaknesses.
Toronto also parted ways with longtime coach Dwane Casey and hired Nick Nurse, who has shifted the starting lineup a little by often starting Serge Ibaka at center alongside the much-improved Pascal Siakam – unless he’s found a need for more size, which may be the case Sunday night against Hassan Whiteside, and then gone back to Jonas Valanciunas.
Game Preview: Raptors vs Heat | Toronto Raptors
Injury Report: For the Raptors, Norman Powell (left shoulder subluxation) is out. For the Heat, Goran Dragic (right knee injury), Tyler Johnson (right hamstring strain), Dion Waiters (left ankle surgery) are all out. Justise Winslow (quadriceps contusion) is listed as questionable.
Record set: The Raptors have set another record already this season. Friday’s 125-107 victory against the Washington Wizards moved Toronto to 16-4 on the season, a new franchise record for the most wins through the first 20 games of the regular season. The Raptors previously went 15-5 in the first 20 games of the season during the 2014-15 season. Toronto has the best record in the league and is two games ahead in the wins column.
Packed schedule: Sunday’s match up against the Heat kicks off a busy week for the Raptors. After facing Miami, the team will head to Memphis to take on the Grizzlies on Tuesday, return to Toronto to prepare for the Golden State Warriors on Thursday and then head to Cleveland to play the Cavaliers on Sunday.
Gregg Popovich says Kawhi Leonard great player but wasn't leader for San Antonio Spurs
During Leonard’s rehabilitation process, his relationship with the Spurs became strained as the sides disagreed about different elements of the recovery and the various timetables for return. He requested a trade over the summer, and the Spurs eventually acquiesced.
Before that, as Leonard developed into one of the NBA’s premier two-way players and a perennial MVP candidate, the Spurs had hoped he would take on a larger role as a leader, especially after the 2016 retirement of franchise stalwart Tim Duncan.
Leonard actually started to take steps in that direction, and he was often one of the first Spurs to address the media as a team spokesman after games once Duncan retired.But after Leonard suffered an ankle injury in Game 1 of the 2017 Western Conference finals that forced him to miss that entire series, the team revealed just before training camp that he was dealing with the quadriceps issue. From that point forward, Leonard became distant with the organization, sources told ESPN.
Still, Popovich defended Leonard over the summer against any insinuation that he was not a good teammate.
“That is all ridiculous,” Popovich said at the time. “Kawhi was a great teammate the whole way through. He did his work, and he was no problem for anybody. Talking heads out there have to have a story. If I was a talking head — maybe I am — I would have stories, too. All the stories that denigrated him in that regard, that was unfortunate and inaccurate.”
