The Toronto Raptors defeated the Boston Celtics 125-122 after two overtimes on Wednesday, extending the Eastern Conference Semifinals to Game 7.

Kyle Lowry was Toronto's hero with his 33 points, eight rebounds, six assists and two steals. As the previous five games repeatedly showed, the one decisive difference between Toronto and Boston is that Boston have two go-to guys – Kemba Walker and Jayson Tatum – and Toronto don't have any. That's why Toronto could turn the game into a standoff with their defense but lost by one or two balls.

Lowry changed that for the team. His court-high 33 points included 3-3 of 3-pointers in the second quarter, two straight triples in Q4 and a valuable fadeaway jumper in front of Walker in the last 12 seconds of the second OT. By the way, Lowry is already 34 years old but he still played 53 minutes in the game, the second-longest of the two teams.

"We were playing against a physical, tough team that is well coached with a couple All-Stars, some real nice stars and a great team. We had to work hard for this win and for us; that is what we do. We work hard and we play every possession like it is our last and find ways to pull out victories," said Lowry after the game.

Boston had their chance to end this series in Wednesday's game as their young pair, Tatum and Jaylen Brown together put down 60 points, 30 rebounds and 11 assists. Tatum missed triple-double by only one assist. Marcus Smart got his first triple-double in the playoffs with 23 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. Even Daniel Theis who averaged 9.2 points in the regular season scored 18 points.

If Walker could go a bit better than 2-11 in field goals, Boston would have been preparing for the Conference Finals against the Miami Heat.

However, to be fair, when Toronto, one of the best defensive teams this season invested so much efforts in limiting Walker, there was not much he could do. Meanwhile, Thursday's game exposed one of the problems that Boston had been hiding for too long: unreliable bench squad.

Despite the two-OT long game, Toronto stuck to eight-player-rotation. The team's three substitutes together dropped 38 points. Serge Ibaka scoring 13 points might be conventional but Norman Powell’s 23 points in 38 minutes was essential contribution to Toronto's win. By contrast, Boston's four bench players, Brad Wanamaker, Grant Williams, Robert Williams III and Semi Ojeleye, only played 37 minutes combined and had 16 points together. In other words, the stats of them four were beaten by that of Powell alone.

Of course, Toronto did not have everything in their way. Pascal Siakam continued to struggle in the game. Having played 54 minutes, the longest on the court, he went 5-19 in FGs and missed all five attempts from the 3-point line to get only 12 points. If Siakam continues performance like this in Game 7, do Toronto rely count on Lowry to save them again?

Clippers afford to make mistakes, Nuggets don't

The Los Angeles Clippers claimed an easy win of 96-85 over the Denver Nuggets in Game 4 of the Western Conference Semifinals on Wednesday, leading 3-1 in the series. They are only one win from making the Conference Finals for the first time in franchise history.

Fairly speaking, this was not the best game the Clippers had. They only got 96 points at an FG rate of 41.77 percent and sank eight triples at a 3-point rate of 28.57 percent. The team only scored six point via fast break and did not reach 30 points in any quarter.

The best chance for the Nuggets came in the third quarter when the opponents were called six fouls in less than two minutes. The Nuggets managed to tie the score but failed to go any further. Nikola Jokic could not score as he did in the first half but he could still find open teammates after drawing attention of the Clippers' defense. Nonetheless, none of the rest of the Nuggets could bury those shots.

The Clippers' slump did not last forever, especially when they had Kawhi Leonard who only missed one assist for a triple-double. After his teammates were either sitting on foul trouble or kept missing shots in Q3, Leonard stood out to take over. The nine points he scored were not huge, but good enough to shore up the shaky situation for the Clippers. When the rest of the team found their game back, the Nuggets could barely put up much resistance.