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If you were hoping for a groundbreaking announcement of a revamped rotation from Dwane Casey before the game, you'll be disappointed. Nothing crazy came out of either Casey or Frank Vogel's press conferences before the game - that came afterwards - but here are some of the highlights from their pre-game availabilities.
Casey on how he expect his team to approach the pressure-filled environment of Game 2:
That's hard to predict, you know human nature ... One thing you don't wanna do is downplay it because it's real ... My belief, my trust my confidence is that we're gonna come out and perform, come out and compete. Our whole thing today was compete with poise in the game from start to finish. Again, the key for me also is to compete that last five minutes with poise. It was a tie game with 5-6 minutes to go and down in the end is when you really have to compete with poise, intelligence and smart play.
Casey on whether or not Jonas Valanciunas will see more touches tonight after his strong Game 1 performance:
No question. We're gonna try to in some kind of way ... The key with him is just be smart and not be on the bench and getting in foul trouble. I think he was doing the Moses Malone on the tip-ins, again he was doing a heck of a job when he was in there and wasn't in foul trouble. We wanna utilize him.
*And finally the heavy stuff. Casey on whether or not he's going to make any changes to the starting lineup: "We'll see."
About an hour after the presser, though, it was announced that DeMarre Carroll will in fact get the start tonight:
The @Raptors will start Lowry, DeRozan, Carroll, Scola and Valanciunas in Game 2. #rtz
— RaptorsMR (@RaptorsMR) April 18, 2016
That's a big deal. Not only will it alleviate the defensive burden on DeMar DeRozan by giving Paul George to Carroll, but it could nudge Norman Powell from the rotation.
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Frank Vogel on if there were any areas he wanted to see his team clean up in Game 2 despite a strong series-opener:
"There's always things. You could play your best game of the season and still feel like there are a hundred things you could do better. Certainly I'd start with keeping Valanciunas off the glass more and keeping them (the Raptors) off the free throw line more.
We only hit you with the hard news.
Stay tuned for the GameThread and enjoy the game.