Leonard nails game winner as Raptors edge Portland

Kawhi Leonard made the winning jump shot in the final seconds to finish with 38 points as the Toronto Raptors defeated the visiting Portland Trail Blazers 119-117 on Friday night.Marc Gasol added 19 points, eight rebounds and six assists as Toronto ended Portland’s season-high, five-game winning streak. The Raptors have won nine of 10 games.Kyle Lowry had 19 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds, Pascal Siakam scored 16 points, and Danny Green had 11 points.CJ McCollum led Portland with 35 points while Damian Lillard had 24 points, eight rebounds and six assists. Jake Layman added 13 points, Maurice Harkless 11 and Al-Farouq Aminu 10. Jusuf Nurkic had 10 points and seven rebounds.Toronto led by as many as 16 points during the third quarter, but Portland pulled within one point on Lillard’s 3-pointer with 6:47 remaining in the game. The Raptors, who missed 12 straight shots over eight minutes, led by five after Leonard’s bank shot with 4:03 left.Lillard’s 3-pointer tied the game with 3:28 to go. The game was tied at 113 after Green made a 3-pointer with 57.4 seconds to play.After Portland took a one-point lead, Lowry’s floater in the lane put Toronto on top with 35 seconds remaining. Leonard made two free throws with 17.8 seconds left, and Toronto led by three.Lillard tied the game with three free throws with 13.8 seconds left, but Leonard made a 12-foot, baseline jumper that bounced on the rim before dropping for the winning points with three seconds left.The Raptors led 31-24 after the first quarter. Layman scored the first seven points of the second quarter to tie the game. Seth Curry’s running dunk gave Portland a 35-33 lead with 8:39 left in the first half. The Raptors later countered with a 9-2 surge to lead by five. Toronto took advantage of five Portland turnovers leading to 10 points in the second quarter and took a 61-54 edge into intermission.Norman Powell’s layup stretched the lead to 16 with 3:31 left in the third quarter. The Raptors led 93-84 after three.Center Enes Kanter was not with the Trail Blazers because of visa issues.Zach LaVine scored a career-high 47 points as the Chicago Bulls overcame Trae Young’s career-high 49 to defeat the Atlanta Hawks 168-161 in a four-overtime NBA marathon on Friday.Lauri Markkanen snapped a 159-159 tie by making three free throws in the fourth overtime to put the Bulls ahead for good.It was the third highest scoring game in NBA history as both teams set franchise records for points in a game.Markkanen finished with 31 points and 17 rebounds for the visiting Bulls, who topped their 156-155, quadruple-overtime win at Portland on March 1984. “I’ve never been part of a game that long,” LaVine said. “I airballed one because I was so damn tired.”Markkanen was fouled by Atlanta’s Alex Len on a three-point attempt with just under two minutes left the final overtime and made all three. It was part of a 7-0 Bulls run that gave them their fifth win in a half dozen games.LaVine also had nine rebounds and nine assists while Otto Porter delivered 31 points and 10 rebounds in the win.Young set a franchise record for the most points by a Hawks rookie. He shot 17-of-33 from the floor and added 16 assists and eight rebounds.“That was a fun game to play, probably one of the most fun games I’ve played in my career,” Young said.Atlanta appeared to be headed to a victory late in the fourth quarter when Young drained a shot from beyond the arc to give them a three-point lead with two seconds left. But with 0.4 seconds remaining, Atlanta’s Dewayne Dedmon was whistled for a foul on Porter’s three-point shot. Porter made all three free throws to tie the game at 124-124 and sent it to overtime.