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East race more interesting after beefed-up Raptors top stand-pat Celtics

Fans of the Boston Celtics were already crotchety after their team stood idle at Thursday's trade deadline. Friday's loss north of the border will only inflate their indignation.

The Celtics blew a 17-point first-half lead against the Kyle Lowry-less Toronto Raptors in a 107-97 loss Friday night at the Air Canada Centre. While Isaiah Thomas endured a rare poor-shooting performance, DeMar DeRozan erupted for a career-high 43 points.

The toughest part to stomach for Celtics fans -- beyond the fact that Toronto re-injected itself in the race for the No. 2 spot in the East while closing to within three games of Boston -- is that February acquisitions Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker had monster impacts while making their Toronto debuts Friday night.

Ibaka, plucked from Orlando, put up 15 points and seven rebounds over 36 minutes in a starting role. Tucker, one of the names routinely floated as the type of off-the-bench energizer who could have helped the Celtics, finished with nine points and 10 rebounds over 29 minutes.

After Friday's game, both Celtics coach Brad Stevens and big man Al Horford raved about what Tucker adds to Toronto, especially with toughness and defensive versatility.

The Celtics had a chance Friday to really step on the fingers of a Raptors team clinging to hopes of premium seeding in the Eastern Conference after dropping 11 of their final 16 games before the All-Star break. What's more, before Friday's game, Lowry was deemed out indefinitely because of a nagging wrist injury.

But despite building a 17-point lead in the second quarter, the Celtics couldn't keep their foot on the gas. DeMarre Carroll ruffled some Boston feathers by shoving Thomas to the floor when the Celtics' All-Star point guard tried to attack the basket in transition. Thomas immediately ran at Carroll to confront him, resulting in technicals for both players, as well as Jae Crowder, and Carroll ultimately earned a flagrant foul 1 for the initial shove.

It was Toronto that responded from the brief dust-up by scoring the final seven points of the first half -- aided when Thomas got a flagrant 1 soon after -- to trim that 17-point deficit to 10. By midway through the third quarter, the Raptors had surged ahead.

Toronto won three of four head-to-head meetings with Boston this season. The Celtics have only one DeRozan-less victory to cling to and continue to struggle against the sort of quality opponents they are likely to encounter if they are fortunate enough to get out of the first round of the playoffs.

On Friday, Celtics brass engaged in a local radio blitz while trying to explain the organization's decision to stand idle at the trade deadline. Make no mistake, all indications are that Boston made the right choice in not overpaying and sacrificing key assets in hopes of poaching Chicago's Jimmy Butler or Indiana's Paul George. And when Boston was rolling in the first half, it seemed as if the sort of night when the Celtics could thump their chests for being unwilling to part with prized young talent like Jaylen Brown (13 points in 28 minutes).

Instead, the Celtics will wake up Saturday morning looking in the rearview mirror. They got help Friday when the 76ers defeated the Wizards, allowing Boston to maintain its two-game lead over Washington. But the Raptors are lingering and, while three games is still a large gap to close during the final 24 games of the regular season, Toronto has clearly improved itself for the stretch run and beyond.

ESPN's Basketball Power Index projected a 42 percent chance that the Celtics and Raptors would cross paths in the postseason with the most likely encounter coming as part of a 2-3 matchup in the East semifinals. The Raptors entered Friday's game as the favorite in that matchup, even as the lower seed, and those odds will only improve with another head-to-head win.

There are obvious concerns for Boston in seeing the Raptors again, most notably trying to slow down DeRozan, who has been an absolute wrecking ball against the Celtics. Boston must hope that Thomas' quiet performance was just a rare off night and not indicative of the way good teams can make things difficult for him.

The Celtics had all sorts of momentum right before the All-Star break. They had won 11 of 12 before a late whistle against Marcus Smart helped the Bulls sneak out a win in the final game before the break. After Friday, questions will linger about whether Boston can hang with the top teams in its conference.

Fair or not, Boston's inactivity at the deadline will be referenced if things get interesting during the stretch run. It's on Boston players to show that management made the right decision.