After the Toronto Raptors dropped their third game this season to the NBA champion Celtics, they were only too eager to board a plane bound for Boston.
Ray Allen poured in a season-high 36 points, including eight three-pointers as the Celtics snapped a four-game losing skid with a 94-88 win over the Raptors.
It was a game of three horrible quarters and one late-game surge for Toronto, and now the Raptors hope their strong fourth-quarter performance carries over to Monday, when they face the Celtics again on the back end of a rare home-and-home series.
``We're pumped up, we're fired up, we can't wait to get there,'' Raptors forward Joey Graham said after the game. ``The team needs to push the time up for the plane so we can hurry up and get there, because I'm anxious and ready to go.''
Andrea Bargnani had 17 points to top the Raptors (16-22), who saw their season-high three-game winning streak at the Air Canada Centre come to a screeching halt.
Chris Bosh added 15 points and a team-high 11 rebounds, while Jamario Moon had 15 points, and Jason Kapono and Graham finished with 12 apiece.
Rajon Rondo added 14 points and 11 assists for Boston (30-9), while Kevin Garnett had 10 points and 11 boards.
The Raptors, who were missing starting centre Jermaine O'Neal, had won four of their previous five heading into Sunday, including a seemingly easy 103-82 victory over Memphis on Friday. The Celtics, on the other hand, arrived amid their worst losing streak of the season, dropping seven of their previous nine.
But except for a fourth-quarter comeback that came too late, it was Toronto that had all the trouble Sunday, trailing by double digits for most of the game and as much as 20 in the third quarter on some horrible shooting and sloppy play.
The Celtics took a 75-55 lead into the final 12 minutes, when the Raptors launched their comeback, outscoring their visitors 33-19 in the quarter. When Bosh drove hard by Garnett to finish with a two-handed dunk with 4:04 left, the basket brought the capacity crowd of 19,800 to its feet and cut Boston's lead to 85-76.
``I really liked our energy in the fourth quarter,'' said Raptors coach Jay Triano. ``We found a bunch of players that really had a lot of juice because I didn't think we had it much for the most part of the game, we didn't seem to have a lot of bounce.''
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