Bosh powers Raptors to third win

The Raptors won despite missing a key part of their team, as guard Morris Peterson sat out with a torn muscle in his left elbow. That snapped Peterson’s streak of 371 straight games played, which had been the longest in the NBA. The string started February 12, 2002.

Joey Graham added 16 points and eight rebounds for the Raptors, who won for just the third time in 11 games all season and broke a four-game slide versus the Cavaliers.

LeBron James narrowly missed a triple-double with 30 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists for Cleveland. He also had four steals, but the solo effort wasn’t enough for the Cavs, who fell for just the second time in their last eight games.

The Raptors trailed 75-73 going into the fourth quarter, but scored the first nine points of the final period. Bosh’s driving layup capped the burst with 8:07 left, and Toronto led the rest of the way.

Anderson Varejao’s basket closed the deficit to 89-85 for Cleveland with 3:28 remaining. Damon Jones then missed a jumper for the Cavs, and T.J. Ford countered at the other end with a bucket to increase the lead back to six with 2 1/2 minutes left. A Ford layup made it 93-85 with 1:17 left.

Fred Jones tallied 14 points, and Ford and Anthony Parker each finished with 11 for the Raptors.

Damon Jones and Zydrunas Ilgauskas each had 12 points for the Cavs.

Toronto started quickly by scoring nine of the game’s first 11 points and led 35-20 after 12 minutes. The Raptors’ largest lead was 19 points, at 33-14 on Bosh’s tip shot with 1:05 left in the period.

A 14-0 run by the Cavs closed their deficit to 45-42 with 4:13 left until halftime. Damon Jones’ layup finished the spurt, but Cleveland trailed 56-52 at the intermission.

Game Notes

Varejao had 10 points and 10 rebounds...Bosh went 10-of-14 from the foul line...Cleveland shot 39.4 percent from the field, including 5-of-25 from three-point range...Toronto was 3-of-17 from beyond the arc, but 28-of-34 at the charity stripe.