TORONTO — DeMar DeRozan played with what felt "like a blowtorch" for a right hand. Kyle Lowry's cut face looked like it had gone a few rounds in the ring.

But for the first time this post-season, they looked and played like themselves — on the same night.

And now the Toronto Raptors are one victory away from the NBA Eastern Conference final.

DeRozan scored 34 points, while Lowry had 25 points and 10 rebounds to lift the Raptors 99-91 over the Heat on Wednesday. They head back to Miami with a 3-2 lead in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinals.

"They're our guys," said coach Dwane Casey — as he's been saying all playoffs. "We can disparage them all we want to and talk about how bad their shooting is, but you don't forget how to score the basketball. We have faith in those guys, they carried us the entire season."

A victory in Friday's Game 6 and the Raptors will play in the Conference finals for the first time in the team's 21-year history.

But in what's turned into a series of attrition, the Raptors lost DeMarre Carroll late in the third quarter. Carroll, who'd been playing smothering defence on Dwyane Wade, fell hard on his left wrist, which bent on an angle wrists aren't intended to bend. He left the game in considerable pain, and then was taken for an MRI.

The Raptors are already without Jonas Valanciunas for the series (ankle), while the Heat are missing starting centre Hassan Whiteside (knee), and Luol Deng left Wednesday's game with a wrist injury.

DeRozan jammed his thumb late in Game 1, and his shooting has been horrific since. But the all-star guard shot 11 for 22 from the field and a perfect 11 for 11 from the free-throw line. He was aggressive all night; there was zero tentativeness with the bad thumb.

"That was huge for us," Casey said. "Usually you're not sticking (the hand) in there as much, he did. His heart's in the right place, giving his body up for the team and that's how you win in this league. I told him he'll rest this summer.

"At this time nobody is totally healthy. Kyle looks like a boxer, he's got cuts on both eyes so this is the time you play through it, this is what you prepare your professional career for, the playoffs."

Lowry and DeRozan's solid shooting sparked an early 20-point Raptors lead, before the Heat cut it to 10 with a 16-2 run that straddled the second and third quarter.

The Raptors headed into the fourth up 75-62, but back-to-back three-pointers from Josh Richardson cut the lead to seven points. DeRozan took a hard hit to his thumb, and made a beeline for the locker-room. But he returned with four minutes to play, to a warm ovation, and promptly gave them reason to cheer.

"I didn't have no doubt in my mind that I was coming back, I don't care how bad it was hurting," DeRozan said.

Without Carroll's defence down the stretch, Wade scored Miami's final eight points, and cut the Raptors' lead to just one with two minutes to play.

But as they'd done throughout Toronto's record-breaking regular season, DeRozan and Lowry closed with a vengeance. DeRozan was perfect on six free throws, and Lowry hit a three-point dagger with just under a minute to play, and followed it up with another long jumper that had the Air Canada Centre roaring.

"Knowing that that situation is at hand, me and DeMar, we are our closers, we've been our closers all year," Lowry said. "So if he had an opportunity to get a shot, I'm sure he would try to make it, and he would have taken it with confidence and we would have had confidence in it, and vice versa for me."

Bismack Biyombo had 10 points, six rebounds and four blocks in an energetic — and entertaining — performance. He celebrated a dunk by making like Usain Bolt. He channelled Dikembe Mutombo with a finger wag after blocking a Wade shot.

"It's huge," said Cory Joseph. "Biz brings energy every game. That's his style of play. He doesn't back down from nobody. He goes out there and he's going to play hard regardless of the situation. That's what we love about him."

The raucous ACC crowd included Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament, NFL superstar Terrell Owens and Montreal Canadiens' P.K. Subban — who has become a regular fixture at Raptors games in the post-season. The backdrop of black and white T-shirts spelled "YYZ" — both a city nickname and its airport code.

Wade, who sparked outrage on social media when he took shots during "O Canada" in Game 3, was loudly booed every time he handled the ball.

The Cleveland Cavaliers await the series winner after sweeping the Atlanta Hawks.

The Raptors raced out to a 16-point lead before the game was 10 minutes old. DeRozan and Lowry combined for 19 first-quarter points and the Raptors led 28-18 heading into the second.

Lowry's reverse layup put Toronto up by 20 points just three-and-a-half minutes before halftime, but the Heat ended the quarter on a 10-0 run, cutting the Raptors' lead to 55-45 at halftime.