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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO - With one minute left in a game that the Raptors trailed by 15, DeMar DeRozan sent Nets guard Bojan Bogdanovic to the deck with a body check in transition, a lazy play that gave him a head start to the showers.

It was that kind of night for DeRozan and his team, a night of frustration, suffering their second disheartening defeat in as many games.

"I think tonight was just frustrating," admitted the Raptors guard, who was ejected from Wednesday's 109-93 loss after being assessed a flagrant foul 2 for the aforementioned play. "The last two games, we're not playing like ourselves. We showed we can do it, we did it in four games in five nights last week, the type of team we are. We just have to be consistent with it and it's just frustrating when little things might not go our way and we let that trickle down to other things."

Leading by two after 24 minutes, shooting 53 per cent from the field, Toronto hit just 37 per cent of its shots in the second half, outscored 60-42 by the division rival Nets over that stretch. DeRozan was 3-for-9, while Kyle Lowry - 5-for-6 with 13 points in the first half - was held scoreless on seven shots.

The feeling in the home team's locker room when it was all said and done: frustration, as you might expect. They had gotten their historic campaign back on track after hitting a mid-season road block - winning six straight entering this week - but now, they find themselves searching for their lost identity once again.

"There is a sense of frustration because we are losing games that we know we are capable of winning," said Lowry, who was coming off a two-point performance in Monday's loss to Milwaukee. "For us, it's a bigger in-game goal for us. We know what we want to be and where we can be and, when we lose games like this, it's always difficult to swallow."

"We have to get back to the drawing board and be that team we were the last two weeks," Raptors coach Dwane Casey added. "That just didn’t happen by osmosis, that’s who we are and we’ve got to get back to that. For whatever reason, we’ve lost that work ethic, that fight, that grit, that grime and we’ve got to get that back."

Many of those breakdowns occurred on the defensive end, particularly on the perimeter where they failed to stop Brooklyn's guards from getting into the lane, an ongoing issue for Casey's team. For the second time in five days, former Raptor Jarrett Jack went off, scoring 24 points, including several buckets at the rim after blowing by Lowry and Toronto's guards.

The lone bright spot for Toronto may have been Terrence Ross, coming off the bench for the 10th-straight game to score a team-high 23 points. Although the team is 7-3 with Ross as a reserve and Greivis Vasquez starting, the third-year swingman could get his job back as soon as Friday with Casey searching for answers to get his club back on track.

They don't have much time to do it. Their next eight opponents are above .500, including six of the West's top nine teams and the two clubs - Atlanta and Washington - that accompany them at the top of the East.

"We've got to play with that chip on our shoulder, honestly, and with that sense of urgency," DeRozan said. "We have no choice but to automatically correct the things that we know how to do, what got us here. It didn't happen by accident, it happened by hard work and we've got to get back to that."

GARNETT'S LAST HURRAH

Although it's not for certain, Wednesday night may have marked Kevin Garnett's final game in Toronto.

The 38-year-old forward has admitted that he's contemplating retirement after this, his 20th NBA season. Barring another Raptors-Nets playoff series in the spring, Garnett and company are not scheduled for another visit to the Air Canada Centre in 2014-15, with the fourth and final meeting taking place in Brooklyn on April 3.

A future Hall of Famer and one of the greatest power forwards to play the game, Garnett came into the league the same year the Raptors did. Drafted straight out of high school with the fifth-overall selection - one pick before the Vancouver Grizzlies chose Bryant Reeves and two before their expansion cousins in Toronto claimed Damon Stoudamire - Garnett made an immediate impact on the NBA. His is a dying breed in today's Association.

"Competitor," said Dwane Casey, asked to describe his former player. Casey coached Garnett in Minnesota for parts of two seasons from 2005-07.

"I'll tell you what," the Raptors head coach continued. "I've had one [other like him], Gary Payton. Probably those two are the two most big-time competitors I've ever been around. Whether it's cards, horseshoes, whatever it is, those two want to win and that's Kevin Garnett. You're talking about one of the best communicators to ever play the game as far as talking on defence, communicating to his teammates. The air of practice, the air of the gym changes when he walks in because he loves practice, he loves to compete. You just wish all young guys coming into the league could talk that from him, his competitive edge and his competitive spirit. He's just one of a kind."

Wednesday was Garnett's 23rd career game in Toronto, entering it with an average of 18.2 points and 8.5 rebounds at the ACC and SkyDome. He scored seven and grabbed four boards, logging 12 minutes in the win.

MISSING JOHNSON

Toronto was still without James Johnson, who was unavailable for a fourth-straight game nursing a strained right hamstring.

The reserve forward had fallen out of Casey's rotation before sustaining the injury ahead of Friday's game in Brooklyn. After logging an average of 23 minutes per contest in December, Johnson played just 18 a night in December and less than eight over the last five games he appeared in.

"[We've missed] his size, his bulk to go against a guy like Joe Johnson," Casey said prior to Wednesday's tilt, indicating that he may try utilizing the versatile forward differently upon his return. "That's kind of what of what we brought him in for. He was doing some athletic things at his position, rebounding." 

"One thing that he hadn't done as much of that we'd probably like him to do going forward is play a little bit more four when the other teams go small," Casey continued. "Because he can guard guys like Blake Griffin and, maybe tonight, a guy like Garnett. So we have to integrate him a little bit more that way when he comes back."

The Raptors are without a timetable for his return to action.