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Bobcats try to continue home dominance of Raptors

Nov 6, 2013 - 3:24 PM (SportsNetwork.com) - The Charlotte Bobcats will search for two consecutive victories Wednesday night when they welcome the Toronto Raptors to Time Warner Cable Arena.

The Bobcats snapped a 16-game road losing streak on Tuesday night. Charlotte is the lowest-scoring franchise in the NBA, averaging 85.7 points per game, but exploded for a 102-97 win.

The Bobcats were fortunate in that Tyson Chandler, the former Defensive Player of the Year, was injured in the first quarter when he collided knee-to-knee with Charlotte's Kemba Walker. Chandler did not return and the Bobcats put up 64 points in the first half.

"We want to push the pace. That's how we want to play," said Walker. "We want to get up and down. We want to play great defense and get stops and push in transition."

Walker led the Bobcats with 25 points, six assists and five rebounds. Gerald Henderson was next with 18 points, followed by 16 from Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who played a great all-around game, 13 from Jeff Taylor and Ramon Sessions, who had 10.

The Raptors fell at home to the two-time defending champs, the Miami Heat, 104-95 on Tuesday night. The Heat shot 43.5 percent from behind the 3-point line and only committed 13 turnovers, which led to just five Raptors points. Toronto only coughed it up 15 times, but nine of those occurred in the fourth quarter.

"Those turnovers in that one stretch broke our back," acknowledged coach Dwane Casey.

DeMar DeRozan paced the Raptors with 21 points, followed by a fine game from center Jonas Valanciunas, who had 18 points and nine boards. Rudy Gay and Kyle Lowry both had 13 points and Terrance Ross contributed 11 off the bench.

The Raptors made a game of it against the Heat, but they went cold from the field with two minutes to go.

"We were only six down," Casey said. " We have to make shots late in games to stay in games."

The two squads split last season's four meetings with the home team prevailing each time. The Bobcats are 8-3 in their last 11 against Toronto, which is winless in five straight at Charlotte.