They hope their resilience helps make them stronger as they get ready to face the Cleveland Cavaliers again.

At the least, the Raptors will need to get better at holding onto big leads after blowing a 25-point advantage against the Milwaukee Bucks before winning 92-89 on Thursday night. Toronto took a physical, tiring first-round series in six games.

”We’re just a team up north. We don’t get a lot of respect and I like that,” coach Dwane Casey said. ”As a matter of fact I think we’re better with our backs against the wall.”

The Eastern Conference semifinals start in Cleveland on Monday.

”Ready for the next one. Ready for the next one,” guard DeMar DeRozan said. The Raptors’ leading scorer had 32 points on 12-of-24 shooting, along with five steals.

But once again, the Raptors didn’t make it easy on themselves. They looked as if they were on cruise control after DeMarre Carroll’s 3 gave them the 71-46 advantage with 5:16 left in the third quarter.

Then they started resembling the team that got embarrassed in a 27-point blowout in Game 3.

Giannis Antetokounmpo played 47 minutes, mustering enough energy to help spearhead a second-half rally. He repeatedly tore through the Toronto defense to get to the lane, finishing with 34 points. Khris Middleton fought through an illness that bothered him all week to score 19 points.

On offense, the Raptors stopped moving the ball. They had so much success up to that point with throwing quick passes, finding cutters and scoring on pick-and-rolls. The Bucks didn’t trap as much as earlier in the series, throwing a new wrinkle at Toronto.

”I handled it well. I was ready (for) whatever they were going to throw at me,” DeRozan said. ”I knew later in the game it was going to be difficult and it was.”

Both teams were tired in the final few minutes, especially the Bucks. But Milwaukee still set an aggressive tone from late in the third quarter through most of the fourth. Casey said his team had lost some composure during the Bucks’ run.

”Our physicality is something we have to look at,” he said. ”At the end of the day, I loved our resiliency. I loved how our guys didn’t cave in.”

Toronto answered the Game 3 blowout by winning a defensive slugfest in Game 4, the start of three straight victories to close out the series.

Now it’s on to Cleveland, a year after losing to the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals in six games.

Casey said again on Thursday night that his playoff-tested team knows how to respond from adversity. They’re used to being doubted.

”We’re better from that standpoint,” he said. ”We’ve got some fighters and scrappers. … We make it hard on ourselves sometimes, but at the end of the day we’re going to go down swinging.”

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Racial tension was simmering in the United States. Images of police brutality had gone viral. National anthem protests were spreading.

The coach was moved by what his players said.

”Terrence Ross, who everyone thought was really quiet, had some very thoughtful and impactful statements and thoughts on the whole issue that you would never think,” Casey said. ”I was really proud of the way our players had opinions and had thought them out, very respectful yet thought-provoking statements that they made.”

If athletes, with their legions of fans, are in a unique position to speak up, Casey is all for it.

The 59-year-old coach was raised by his grandparents in Morganfield, Kentucky. The town was largely segregated until an effort at integration, when he was in fourth grade, forced him to ride a bus across town to school. He went on to become one of the first black players at the University of Kentucky.

”I’ve lived it, I know it, I know how (the players) are feeling, what they’re going through, what they’re seeing,” Casey told The Canadian Press after a recent practice. ”I’ve told them, `Hey I’ve been through segregation. I’ve changed schools where I’ve had to fight, and the National Guard was brought in. I’ve used hand-me-down books in school. I’ve seen police brutality. I’ve seen the Ku Klux Klan riding through my town of Morganfield. I’ve seen the segregated bathrooms.’

The Raptors played the first game of the NBA’s preseason in Vancouver, British Columbia, and became the first team in the league to protest during the anthem. They stood with linked arms and have done so in every game since. They open the season at home Wednesday night against Detroit Pistons.

Not everyone was a fan of the gesture.

”Some people got upset because they thought it was disrespecting the police,” Casey said. ”But, believe me, it’s no disrespect to the police force. As a matter of fact, (guard) Delon Wright’s mother is a police officer, and we were very cognizant of that and respectful of that.

”It’s just to continue the conversation. I would argue those incidents needed to be talked about, and what better way for society to understand it than through sports?”

About three-quarters of NBA players are black. The league is considered the most progressive of North American pro sports. The league moved the 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte to New Orleans over a North Carolina bathroom law that discriminated against transgender people.

Commissioner Adam Silver said last week he hopes players continue to stand for the national anthem, but said ”there may be no organization in our society better positioned than the NBA” to make an impact.

NBA players have waded into the U.S. presidential race. LeBron James endorsed Hillary Clinton in an op-ed piece in the Akron Beacon Journal and Business Insider, referencing the ”violence, of every kind, the African-American community is experiencing in our streets and seeing on our TVs.”

Baron Davis wrote a column for the Players Tribune last week called ”Do Something,” encouraging players to vote.

”I tell my players `Get your absentee ballots, and vote,”’ Casey said. ”I remember my grandparents talking about when African-Americans couldn’t vote. Or they tried to make it hard for them to vote.

”So that is a privilege a lot of people fought for, you went to jail for. Everyone should vote. That’s your way of showing power as an individual. We can protest, but the only way you fight stuff like that is through voting. Using your right to vote.”

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