LOS ANGELES—This has not been a good week for the Raptors, three losses on the trot before facing the Lakers here Friday night, each defeat accomplished because of some measure of a late-game swoon.
Players are angry, coaches are perturbed, some segments of the fan base are concerned the season is swirling around the toilet bowl with only 69 games remaining.
But in the sober light of day, with the realities taken into consideration, the longest-serving member of the team figures some pain is not necessarily a bad thing.
“It’s tough to lose now, nobody wants to lose, but we have to understand we have to go through the tough times to make us better and we know late in the season what it takes to pull out these tight games,” DeMar DeRozan said after the team went through a morning shootaround at UCLA.