Toronto Raptors defeated the visiting Atlanta Hawks with a 104-96 victory at the Air Canada Centre on Thursday night.

All-star guard DeMar DeRozan erupted with a game-high 30 points to lead the Raptors to overcome a sloppy start and register the clubs 43^rd victory in 63 games played this season.

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"Tonight was a big challenge for us," DeRozan, who shot 11 of 20 from the field and had four turnovers during the game, said. "We had a lot of turnovers early on and we just tried to use that against them and be aggressive."

Kyle Lowry added 19 points, seven assists and two steals in 37:57 minutes of playing time. Argentine Luiz Scola and Jonas Valanciunas both had a double-double game night, with 10 points and 12 rebounds for Scola and 10 points and 10 boards for Valanciunas.

The Raptors outrebounded the Hawks grabbing 48 boards. Toronto also dominated the shaded area scoring 50 points of the team's game output from inside the paint, while the visiting team was just limited to 34 points in the entire 48 minutes of the match.

Toronto was able to kept things close with the Hawks despite committing turnovers in the early quarters of the game and ended with a four-point lead 52-48 at the halftime. In the third period, the Raptors protected their lead and made a 30-27 run to increase the gap to 82-75 going in to the final quarter.

In the early minutes of the last period, Toronto made a 9-5 charges with Ross, Patterson and Lowry hitting three consecutive three-pointers to make it  91-82 with 9:33 minutes to go.

Lowry made it 101-89 with over three minutes remaining on the game clock and the Raptors went on with the win to snap the three-game winning streak of the Hawks.

Al Horford led Atlanta with 20 points, while Kent Bazemore had 13 points and eight rebounds. Paul Millsap added 12 points and five boards.

Tags Toronto Raptors, Atlanta Hawks, DeMar DeRozan, kyle lowry, NBA, nba recap, Paul Millsap