NBA Scores: Miami Heat 107, Toronto Raptors 102

Who needs LeBron James? The Miami Heat are showing that losing the best player in the planet is not the worst thing in the world especially after a great start in the 2014-2015 NBA Season. The Heat beat the visiting Toronto Raptors, 107-102 on Sunday to improve to 3-0 for the season and remain the only unbeaten team in the Eastern Conference.

Miami survived DeMar Derozan’s explosion of 30 points on 11-of-12 field goal shooting to make it three-in-a-row to start the year with previous victories over the Washington Wizards and Philadelphia 76ers.

Chris Bosh, who had 21 points and 11 rebounds and Dwyane Wade, who had 19 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists were the expected leaders but they got timely contributions from Luol Deng (18 points), Shawne Williams (16 points) and off the bench, Mario Chalmers, who finished with 12 markers.

The Heat led 64-54 at the half and held off the Raptors repeated rallies in the second half. The Heat had 19 turnovers to the Raptors’ 16 but they won the battle of the boards, 43-28. Toronto also failed to convert 15 free throws for just 61.5 per cent on 39 attempts.

Miami led by as many as 14 points midway through the third quarter but Toronto made a game out of it by cutting the lead down to 5 points, 98-93 with less than five minutes to go in the game. Kyle Lowry had 22 points on 7-of-11 field goal shooting while Jonas Valanciunas had 14 points, 8 rebounds and 2 blocked shots for the Raptors, which dropped to 2-1 and had their first loss of the young NBA season.

The Heat are also one of four teams in the NBA with a 3-0 record to start the year with the Golden State Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies and Houston Rockets— all from the Western Conference— also unbeaten after the first week of action in the new season.