CLEVELAND - As the old saying goes, if you play with fire, youre going to get burned. Jeff Blake Jersey . Dwane Casey, who has used the phrase as a cautionary tale after lethargic starts of the recent past, came just short of saying I told you so Tuesday evening. His team had been getting away with it, far more often than any team should. Yes, theyre a resilient bunch and that was the case again in Cleveland as they clawed back from a 21-point deficit - even taking a brief fourth-quarter lead - but its been masking the underlying issue. Theyre an open-faced sandwich, missing the top bun. "You cant play in this league that way and expect to come back each and every night," Casey said after Torontos 102-100 loss to the Cavaliers. "Its bit us more than weve won, it feels like." "Until we fix that, among us, among ourselves, then its going to be an uphill battle every night." For the second time in three days, the Raptors trailed by nine after the first quarter, allowing another team with a losing record, also missing their best player, to shoot above 52 per cent to open the game. The start was eerily similar to Sundays, at home to Atlanta, lacking effort, focus and purpose on both ends of the floor. Even without injured point guard Kyrie Irving, Cleveland killed the visiting Raptors with speed and precision, exposing a reoccurring hole in their interior defence by darting into the paint at will. The comeback was inevitable. Its what they do. Down by 21 early in the third, Toronto staged a 21-9 run to close out the quarter. Kyle Lowry - running back and forth from the locker room all night, battling an upset stomach - scored half of his team-high 22 points in the frame. Greivis Vasquez would give the Raptors their first lead since the opening minutes, draining a three-pointer midway through the fourth before reality set in. "I think everybodys energy was low from having to come back," Lowry said. From that moment on they hit just one of their final 10 shots and on the last possession, down only two, they failed to even get one off. It was a play they had just run with success. Amir Johnson was looking for Lowry to turn the corner, but he was cut off. Instead, Vasquez took the handoff and, trying to spin right, towards the bucket, he lost his footing. "It was me going to my weak hand and I lost my balance, stepped kind of weird," said Vasquez, who scored 16 points of Torontos bench. "I turned the ball over. Ill take responsibility. Im not going to run away. Im a man." A noble gesture but, as Casey pointed out, its not the reason for the loss. "Thats not the game-decider," the Raptors coach said. "The game was decided the way we approached the first quarter." "Its easy to get up for OKC, its easy to get up for Miami, its easy to get up for Indiana but the teams that are not in the playoff picture, they are playing for something, too," he continued. "Theyre playing for pride, which is probably a little bit more dangerous than guys trying to save minutes and save themselves for the playoffs." Theres a lesson to be learned from this loss and it shouldnt take long to figure out whether or not its been absorbed. The Raptors - now the Easts fourth seed, leapfrogged by the Bulls with Tuesdays defeat - will travel to Boston in the second night of a back-to-back and first game of a home-and-home set with the Celtics, another scrappy team looking to play spoiler. "Weve got to get the mindset of being the hunter instead of the hunted because," Casey added. "Thats how we got where we are, being a desperate team, a hungry team and not believing the press clippings or where we are in the standings." Birthday blues Although Lowry would have preferred to celebrate his 28th birthday with a win, the Raptors point guard recorded his 18th double-double with 10 assists to go along with his 22 points. Lowry extended his career-high streak of 19 or more points to 10 games and also became the first Raptor to score 20-plus in eight straight since Chris Bosh did so in 2010. Amir passes VC on blocks list With his third-quarter swat on Spencer Hawes, Johnson recorded his 416th block as a member of the Raptors, passing Vince Carter for second on the teams all-time block shots list. Johnson, who had 12 points and nine rebounds on Tuesday, still has a ways to go to catch Bosh, topping the franchise list with 600 blocks. Patterson nearing a return Patrick Patterson, who has missed 10 straight games with an ulnar collateral sprain in his right elbow, was reassessed on Monday and is headlong well, the team revealed before Tuesdays game in Cleveland. Although hes been cleared for contact, theres still no timetable for his return to game action. "Its a lot up to the medical staff and when they feel he can go," Casey said. "Its one of those things where if he gets hit in the wrong way it could be trouble for a lot longer so thats why they want to make sure its well enough." The stat The Raptors fell just short of matching their largest comeback of the season. They last overcame a 21-point deficit in their home win over Dallas on Jan. 22. Toronto hasnt had multiple wins in which theyve trailed by 20 or more points in the same season since 2004-05. The quote "Weve just got to understand what were playing for," Vasquez said. "Weve got a big one tomorrow [in Boston]. Its a must-win because were actually playing for something. If you dont get up for that youve got to get your gas up. Weve just got to be motivated, man. This is crunch time. This is important for us. Tomorrows a must-win, no matter what. No excuses." Lardarius Webb Jersey . Thats the feeling that eight Canadian Football League teams are experiencing right now in advance of the expansion draft to stock the Ottawa Redblacks. Jonathan Ogden Jersey . The roster changes have been constant and continuous since late last year, but even with their 46-man roster set for the start of the season, the banged-up Bombers will be kicking off Week 1 with a handful of fresh faces and back-ups in the starting lineup. http://www.customravensjersey.com/custom-tony-banks-jersey-large-1143d.html . -- Keith Aulie has joined the Tampa Bay Lightning.Newark, NJ (SportsNetwork.com) - Jaromir Jagr recorded his first hat trick in almost nine years and set a league record in the process, Cory Schneider came up with 18 saves, and New Jersey pounded Philadelphia by a 5-2 count at Prudential Center. Jagr became the oldest player in NHL history to score three times in one contest, doing so at 42 years, 322 days. Gordie Howe held the previous mark on his three-goal effort at the age of 41. The Czech veteran also crept closer to Phil Esposito (717) on the leagues all-time goals list, finishing the night with 714 career tallies. I like to score a hat trick but I dont like to be the oldest guy. I dont want to be the oldest, Jagr quipped. Scott Gomez added a goal and two assists with Patrik Elias providing the other marker for the Devils, who won for just the third time in their last 13 games. Andrew MacDonald and Vincent Lecavalier scored once each for the Flyers, who finished their eight-game road trip at 3-4-1 after losing their final five dates. Ray Emery allowed three goals on 10 shots in the first period to take the loss. Steve Mason finished up with just six saves on eight shots. We didnt do any justice to ourselves these last couple games, said Mason. These are points that were there for the taking. We shouldve had four points from them, and came up with some pretty flat efforts. At this point of the year, we dont need to keep saying it, but its completely unacceptable. Team captain and second-ranking scorer Claude Giroux did not play, one night after suffering a skate cut to the back of his left leg in Carolina. It ended his streak of 168 consecutive regular-season appearances. The Devils recorded the games first goal with 6:40 remaining in the opening period. Emery played the puck beehind his net, but a backhanded clear instead found the stick of Adam Henrique, and Jagr poked it home with a backhander from behind the goal line. Nick Murphy Jersey. Elias scored just over two minutes later from the right side on a power play, after all four Flyers penalty killers drifted to the left side to watch Martin Havlats cross-ice pass. It was 3-0 for the hosts on a Jagr wrister with less than four seconds to go. He stripped Flyers defenseman Mark Streit near the blue line and within the span of several strides, uncorked a trademark wrister from the right wing. New Jersey went up by four just before the midway point of regulation, as Gomez buried a low shot inside the right post to finish off a 4-on-2 break. The rout continued and history was made at the 12:32 mark, when Gomez set up behind Mason and flipped a pass in front where Jagr, sliding towards the crease, was able to direct the puck in to cap his trifecta. MacDonald finally punctured Schneider on a blast with 3:22 remaining before intermission, and Lecavalier fired through an R.J. Umberger screen at 5:59 of the third for a power-play strike. Game Notes Jagr recorded his 15th NHL hat trick and first since March 22, 2006, when he scored all three goals for the Rangers in a 6-3 loss to the Flyers at Madison Square Garden ... Prior to the contest, the Devils recalled defenseman Mark Fraser from Albany of the AHL ... Philly had not dropped five in a row without gaining a point beyond regulation since Nov. 27-Dec. 7, 2009, a losing skid which included the removal of John Stevens and installation of Peter Laviolette as head coach ... The Flyers also played without forward Scott Laughton, deemed day-to-day with a lower-body injury. ' ' '