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TORONTO -- Dwane Casey can breathe a sigh of relief knowing his role as head coach of the Toronto Raptors is secure, at least for the time being. New general manager Masai Ujiri said on Wednesday that Casey will be back for the final year of his contract. That decision may not have caught many people by surprise, but Casey says he didnt dismiss uncertainty surrounding his job that came with Ujiris arrival. "Theres always doubt," Casey said at a press conference at the Air Canada Centre on Thursday. "When you see coaches like George (Karl), Lionel (Hollins), those colleagues lose their jobs, theres always doubt." Casey also witnessed a shake-up within his own organization over the past month. Bryan Colangelo, the former Raptors GM who announced in April that Casey would be back in his head coaching role for the 2013-2014 season, was ousted from his own position and replaced by Ujiri a month later. The 56-year-old Casey said a fear of failure has kept him going. "Thats what motivates me, and I hope thats what motivates our players," he said. "Ive never taken anything for granted, whether it was this job or any job Ive had. Im always fearing failure. I always want to do a good job and thats what I work for." Casey joined the Raptors in 2011 after winning the NBA championship as an assistant coach with the Dallas Mavericks. But since becoming a head coach in Toronto he has managed a 57-91 record. The Raptors, who began their 2012-2013 campaign full of promise after signing young Lithuanian Jonas Valanciunas and acquiring Kyle Lowry and Landry Fields through trades during the off-season, finished the season with a 34-48 record and missing the playoffs for the fifth consecutive year. Casey hopes this year will be different. With a new GM in place, Casey says hes excited to begin preparing for the upcoming season alongside Ujiri, a man who hes known for years. "I know what Masai is about," Casey said. "Hes about a lot of the same things that I stand for -- the toughness, playing hard, being accountable -- all of the things it takes to win. "What I want to do, what is my vision and his vision, is to get to where its a constant, where youre in the playoffs, and build a program thats going to be sustainable over the test of time." According to Casey, he and Ujiri have already begun that process together, despite any uncertainty surrounding Caseys job security. "Weve spent the last couple weeks, probably since (Ujiri) got the job, talking, texting or emailing almost every single day," the Raptors coach said. "We share the same outlook, we know what we need to improve on, what direction we need to go to, and the bottom line is to keep developing what we have. "Our ultimate goal is to develop not just into a team that sneaks into the playoffs, but a team that can consistently say, Hey, we have a chance to fight for a championship." As Casey spoke, the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs were preparing for Thursday nights Game 7 NBA finals match-up. It may be tough to picture Toronto in a do-or-die championship setting right now, but Casey has his sights set high. "I want to be in that situation with the Raptors one of these days," he said. . Mattias Janmark Jersey . Ouellette, from Montreal, already has three Olympic gold medals since joining the team in 1999. Anton Khudobin Stars Jersey . Their 38th instalment is arguably their biggest fight card to date, including three-title fights and a main event which was selected by the fans. The promotion boasts 14-straight years of business and is operated by MFC president Mark Pavelich, who is often overlooked in this country for the foundation hes established for MMA in Canada. http://www.thedallasstarshockey.com/tyler-seguin-hockey-jersey/ . Now that hes hitting streaking teammates with pin-point passes for easy layups, Love is asserting himself as one of the true superstars in the league. Dallas Stars Jerseys . Ibaka equaled a career high with 20 rebounds, adding four blocked shots and 15 points as the Thunder smothered the Milwaukee Bucks offence in a 92-79 victory Saturday night. Mike Modano Jersey . -- Derrick Rose shook off poor shooting early to hit clutch shots late and Carlos Boozer had 20 points and 13 rebounds to lead the Chicago Bulls to a 104-95 preseason victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night. NEW YORK -- Almost everybody in Madison Square Garden was impressed with the game Amile Jefferson had for No. 5 Duke.Nobody appreciated it more than Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski.Jefferson set career highs with 24 points and 15 rebounds to lead Duke to an 84-74 victory over No. 21 Florida on Tuesday night in the Jimmy V Classic.Amile played one of the great games, Krzyzewski said. God bless him. He was fantastic.Luke Kennard scored 29 points and freshman Jayson Tatum added 22 for the Blue Devils (9-1), whose only loss was to Kansas on this same court in the Champions Classic in November.Krzyzewski also praised Kennard, who established his career high for points in the previous game against Maine.Lukes played fantastic, Krzyzewski said. When you get 29 points on 16 shots -- what hed have, 35 against Maine? Really efficient. Hes come through for us beautifully. Hes starting to put it together a little bit.Twice in the final 8 minutes the Gators (7-2) got within seven points but both times Kennard scored to hold off Florida, once with a 3-pointer and again with a long layup off a steal.Down the stretch in that second half, every time they made a play, we did a great job of coming back and taking the air out of the ball, using 20 seconds and then getting up a good shot, Jefferson said. Whether it was Luke, whether it was Jayson, whether it was G (Grayson Allen) penetrating and finding somebody, our guys did an amazing job of never splintering.The 6-foot-9 Jefferson, who also blocked four shots, was 11 for 14 from the field. Kennard went 11 of 16, including 5 for 7 from 3-point range.Kevaughn Allen led Florida with 21 points, and John Egbunu had nine points and 12 rebounds.They were a better team tonight, Florida coach Mike White said. I thought our guys were really jacked up for the opportunity. I thought Amile Jefferson was amazing, just absolutely amazing.Duke closed the first half with an 8-2 run -- Jefferson and Tatum had four points each -- for a 41-31 lead.Allen, Dukes preseason All-America, had an off night shooting (2 for 10, including 1 for 5 on 3s) but he had eight assists to go with his six points.I thought Jayson came out tonight and did an amazing job of just letting it all out, Jefferson said. Luke is the smoothest player in the coountry.dddddddddddd. So playing with these guys has been so much fun so far.BIG PICTUREFlorida: In the first eight games of the season, six different players led the Gators in scoring. ... White was 3 years old when Krzyzewski started coaching at Duke. ... Because of renovations at the OConnell Center on the Florida campus, the Gators wont play their first home game until Dec. 21 against Arkansas-Little Rock. All their games are either on the road or at neutral sites until then.Duke: Krzyzewski is 29-10 at Madison Square Garden as Duke coach. ... The Blue Devils lead the all-time series with Florida 13-4. ... Jefferson was coming off a career-high 20 points against Maine. He had 14 rebounds four times. ... Duke had five double-figure scorers in seven of its nine games coming in. The Blue Devils had three against Florida, all over 20 points.I think were really close if were not there, Kennard said. I think we really, really shared the ball well tonight on the offensive end because we have a lot of scorers. We have a lot of playmakers and a lot of scorers and the way we can share the ball, its pretty special. Not a lot of teams have that many scorers on a team and when we share the ball and get open shots, we can be really dangerous on the offensive end.JIMMY VThroughout both games, videos were shown during timeouts featuring cancer survivors or those whose life has been affected by the disease. The Garden also showed Jim Valvanos speech at the ESPYs when he announced the formation of the V Foundation for Cancer Research. The crowd of 15,294 broke into a prolonged round of applause when it ended with Valvanos now famous Dont give up. Dont ever give up.I miss him, Krzyzewski said of Valvano. Im glad he had the vision to get this thing started.GOOD DBoth teams played solid man-to-man defense and it was such a halfcourt game that there were only 18 fast-break points, 10 for Florida.FAMILY TIESKevin White, the athletic director at Duke, is the father of Florida coach Mike White.UP NEXTFlorida: The Gators head for a real rivalry game, Sunday at Florida State.Duke: On Saturday the Blue Devils travel to Las Vegas to meet UNLV. ' ' '