Title: ‘They were incredible’: Yet another unlikely group extends Raptors’ improbable winning streak
Date: February 8, 2020
Original Source: The Athletic
Synopsis: In my latest for The Athletic Toronto, I wrote about another weird, unlikely lineup pulling the Raptors to victory as their franchise-record winning streak trudges on.
There is no right way to win a basketball game. There are philosophic and analytic and aesthetic ideals, sure. Once the ball goes up, what matters most is finding a way to win, and the more different ways a team has to do that, the better equipped it is to survive more adverse situations.
There is no right way to win 14 basketball games in a row, either. To do that requires some serious bucking of probabilities and an unrelenting approach toward escaping each battle victorious. To win 14 consecutive games in the most fortunate of situations is difficult. Doing so with a rotating cast of injured players — now once again including the team’s engine, Kyle Lowry, who joined Marc Gasol, Norman Powell and Dewan Hernandez on the shelf Saturday due to whiplash — seems if not impossible, highly implausible.
So if you’re going to win games like that — if you’re going to win 14 games in a row like that — you’re going to have to, on occasion, win ’em ugly.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 