TORONTO -- The Toronto Raptors are hot, the Atlanta Hawks are not.The teams meet Saturday night at Air Canada Centre with the Raptors trying to extend their season-best five-game winning streak and the Hawks attempting to stop a five-game losing streak.The Raptors led all the way Friday night in defeating the Los Angeles Lakers 113-80 at the ACC and the Hawks lost to the Detroit Pistons 121-85 at Philips Arena.The Raptors (13-6) will be playing the fourth game of a season-long six-game homestand at the ACC, where they are 7-3 this season.The Hawks (10-10) have lost eight of their past nine games, with the only win coming Nov. 23 at Indiana to the Pacers.They were 9-2 and tied for the Eastern Conference lead after defeating the Milwaukee Bucks on Nov. 16.Dennis Schroder had 17 points and 13 assists for the Hawks on Friday. Tim Hardaway Jr. and Mike Muscala each scored 11.The Raptors likely will have forward DeMarre Carroll back in the lineup. His playing time is being monitored as he entered the season coming off knee surgery.Carroll was rested Friday night to avoid playing him in back-to-back games with Norman Powell replacing him and responding with 16 points and seven rebounds.It was not certain which game Carroll would miss.Powell said after the game that he found out during the shootaround on Friday.From there, it was just preparing and getting focused on who Im guarding and what the team wants me to do defensively to take them out of what they are trying to run, Powell said.Hed been a professional young man, Raptors coach Dwane Casey said after Fridays game. He puts the work in at game tempo, usually when guys are not playing they kind of go through the motions, feel sorry for themselves. But this young man comes in every day, puts in the work, puts in the time, keeps a positive attitude, understands the situation when winning and is just waiting his turn.Just like last year, he was in the D-League for a while and came in and helps us win a (playoff) series. He understands, a mature young man, and I cant say enough good things about him.He will understand if he does not start Saturday.In the Raptors romp past the Lakers, Kyle Lowry again led the way with 24 points. DeMar DeRozan had 16 points as he receives extra attention after a blistering start.Meanwhile, against the Pistons, Dwight Howard had his worst game with the Hawks, scoring only two points and grabbing six rebounds.Weve got to stay positive, Howard said. This little thing we are going through now, even though we dont want to, I think its best we are going through it now and not at the end of the season.All the things we need to clean up, offensively and defensively, are being exposed right now. It gives us time to work on it. So come playoff time and later on in the season, well have all that down pat.The best thing we can do now is not hold our heads, keep positive, speak life into the situation and keep pushing.Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer is obviously not happy with the offense.We are not getting the looks that we need to get, he said. Then I think it puts a lot of pressure when you do get a good look. There is more of a priority, more of a need, to make those good ones.The game gets hard that way. You want to be free-flowing. I dont think we are getting enough good possessions to make those good looks flow right. Eric Dier Jersey . And when it opened, every player was at his stall. Thats a sure sign that a team is in a slump and is searching for answers. "Its embarrassing to be at home and play the way we did," said defenceman Josh Gorges. Erik Lamela Jersey . 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RIO DE JANEIRO -- Gold-medal favorites?Heavy favorites, even?Yes.Still.Both of those tags, at least for the moment, continue to be applicable for this incarnation of the United States mens Olympic basketball team.Best Defensive Team that USA Basketball has ever fielded in the Coach K/Jerry Colangelo era?Dont print those T-shirts up just yet.The raves these 12 players were generating with all that length, athleticism and enthusiasm on D in their first seven games together gave way to some candid and uncomfortable conversation in the Team USA locker room at Carioca Arena 1 late Friday night, after Serbia immediately followed Australias lead and made the Americans look frequently lost in trying to keep up with their worldly opponents constant ball and player movement.We were talking about it in the back, Team USA swingman Paul George said after this 94-91 escape against the same country that a far-less-decorated USA roster at the 2014 FIBA World Cup in Spain routed by 37 points in the championship game.You dont ever sit still [in the international game], George said. In our [NBA] game, there are moments where youre sitting still, you can have a rest period. It might be an action that a guy runs on one side. [Here] youre constantly moving from side to side. Its like they dont get tired. Thats new to us. Thats very new to us.It should be clear by now, after a second successive close shave for Mike Krzyzewskis squad, that its coping with a lot of newness.Over the past few weeks, Krzyzewski has been warning anyone who would listen that countries with years of polished teamwork and established continuity -- or corporate knowledge to use the term preferred by Team USA successor-in-waiting Gregg Popovich -- could hang with his uber-talented roster of NBA All-Stars because this team has been together for a total of only 27 days.I think we play as a team, too, Krzyzewski said of the relieved Americans after they gratefully watched Bogdan Bogdanovics potential overtime-forcing triple from the left wing sail long in the waning seconds, unable to commit the foul they wanted to take before the ball got to Bogdanovic.We do have more talent and we have to get our talent playing even much better as a team. Our guys are playing as a team; they just havent had the experience of playing together that long.Yet what made the Serbia scenes so exasperating is the way Team USA started the game. The Yanks scored the first nine points, stretched the lead to as high as 18 and appeared to be assembling the perfect response to the Australia scare, with no shortage of their own ball-sharing on top of the expected defensive focus to put the Serbs in a quick 27-9 hole.What happened from there, though, has Team USA forward Draymond Green convinced that our offense is hurting our defense as well.We stopped moving the ball and we stopped defending, Green said. Those were the two things that had us going in the first quarter. Once we stopped doing those things, anybody can beat us. If you dont play the brand of basketball that youre supposed to, it makes everything tougher.When we were moving the basketball early on and everything was flowing, our defense was great. Once we stopped moving the basketball, everyone stagnated and it transferred over to the defensive end.The response, from here, will be fascinating. Krzyzewski canceled Saturdays scheduled practice witth a Sunday afternoon game looming against France to finish off Group A play, but the coach has booked a team meeting, video session and walkthrough on the cruise ship USAB is using as a home base.ddddddddddddThe film review wont be pretty. Serbian backcourt maestro Milos Teodosic set the tone with his wonderful first-half passing in the face of heavy U.S. pressure to get Serbias comeback start, before young?Nikola Jokic took over in the second half and finished with 25 points after star center Miroslav Raduljica picked up his third and fourth fouls in a potentially fatal spell of just three seconds early in the third quarter.Today we played our game, Teodosic said. Extra pass.Any time we make one extra pass or two extra passes, we have easy baskets.Said Serbia coach Sasha Djordjevic, surely wondering how the Serbs are mired at 1-3 in the group after a performance like that: We looked pretty good tonight. Pretty good.According to Team USA star Carmelo Anthony, Serbia ran their offense fluently.Magnificent and spectacular, meanwhile, were the words Krzyzewski used. He went to make the case that the likes of Australia and Serbia dont get enough credit for the talent theyve brought to Rio, but Coach K is realistic, too.He knows the drill by now.The United States is expected to win every basketball games it plays internationally. And win them handily. Narrow victories -- two in a row decided by 10 points or fewer after only six such games in Team USAs previous 70 -- are treated like crises back home.Were going to get [every teams] best shot and its kind of free money, because you play a game like this and youre going to be celebrated, win or lose, Krzyzewski said. For us thats not the case. Ever. You just have to understand that.Can we play better? I hope. I think we can.Said George: Once again, we relied on our natural talent to get us over this one. This is why these [foreign-born] guys are special in our league. These international guys, they really know how to move. They really know how to cut. Its more so about how theyre running their offense thats wearing us down.I think in our game there is movement, obviously, but these guys ... its constant movement. Again, well figure this out. Its good that were finding ways to win these games right now. Hopefully these will be the ones that help prepare us for later on in this tournament.It was the losing coach, on this night, who had the privilege of exiting the building with the greater sense of sureness about what his crew will deliver next.Once you move the ball, theyre always chasing something, Djordjevic said. Once you stop the ball, they just go one on one and thats very tough to beat if we have to play that way against athletic players. Thats what Id like to achieve with any of my teams.After he stepped down from the interview podium, Djordjevic was intercepted by ESPN.com at the door and asked if he really expected that game plan to work so effectively against all those big names from the States.Actually yes, Djordjevic told me. Why not?Why not?You guys are better, of course, but you have to prove it on the court.Who knew that would ever be so tough for a gang that opened these Games as a 1-to-20 favorite in Vegas to scoop up all the gold medals? ' ' '