Raptors are a bad underdog serial, make ridiculous comeback against Hawks

Never count these guys out, apparently.

Raptors 96, Hawks 86 | Quick Reaction | Box Score

I really enjoyed the TV series Friday Night Lights. If I had one major complaint about it, it would be that the way the actual football games were written was a bit contrived. It’s ridiculous that a team could always be the underdog, fighting back against adversity successfully over and over (in most cases). And when they weren’t the underdog, they somehow became the underdog, only to ultimately overcome those odds, too. Part of the beauty of the Friday Night Lights movie, and some of the very best sports movies out there (spoiler from a certain excellent recent film redacted), is that a more powerful story can be told in facing long odds and battling them head on even without ultimately overcoming them.

You can’t expect people to believe a person or team is going to just keep plowing through obstacles. David and Goliath make for a great story because the triumph is rare and unexpected. The stories of Job and Sisyphus provide great lessons and inspiration. With the constant odds-overcome-odds-overcome formula, the story can grow redundant and, most importantly to the viewing audience, unrealistic. The Toronto Raptors aren’t quite John Cena – If the Golden State Warriors weren’t so clearly Brock Lesnar, they’d be Cena because “LOL, Warriors win,” – but they’re bordering on Roman Reigns. They’re quickly becoming a bad underdog serial.

Again on Wednesday, the Raptors gave themselves incredibly long odds to overcome.

They turned in another poor first quarter – they’re now 6-11-2 in opening frames with a net -33 margin – but it was really a poor second quarter that appeared to do them in. Well-rested after a pair of off days, the defensive effort was there but the offensive execution was laughable. DeMarre Carroll looked game defensively but an inexplicable step off, Patrick Patterson appeared to injure his hand (he’d continue favoring it into the fourth quarter), Terrence Ross was…yeah, and Kyle Lowry had to leave the game with four minutes to go in the half due to flu-like symptoms. Things looked bleak, as a 34.2-percent mark from the floor, a 2-of-15 mark from outside, and 10 turnovers conspired to put the Raptors in a 46-32 hole at the break.

With Lowry under the weather and a back-to-back in progress, it would have been entirely justifiable to sit him down for the remainder of the game. The Raptors were already stuck 14 on the road against a good team, Cory Joseph is a quality fill-in, and Delon Wright was active after being recalled from the D-League on Sunday. There are occasional games on the schedule when, much as nobody likes to be forthright about it and much as it may anger fans, it makes sense to fold up shop and live to fight another day.

That’s not a mode that Lowry possesses, and 19 games into the season, it’s definitely not a mode these Raptors possess.

For weeks now, the Raptors have played below what we believe to be their full potential. They haven’t blown away any team except for maybe the Bucks (the Sixers and Pelicans games were close at half), and while they’ve taken care of their business, they’ve rarely put together 48 good minutes. Their offense and defense both rank in the top ten but their late-game execution has been found wanting, their reserve scoring insufficient, and their head coach’s job status strangely and repeatedly called into question. And still, they’re 12-7 with an 8-5 mark on the road, with marquee victories against the Cavaliers and at the Clippers, Thunder, and now Hawks. They may not be playing very well possession to possession, but they’re performing remarkably well in terms of actual output.

And while I’m remiss to chalk too much up to the intangible – please recall my inability to buy in to the ethereal chemistry of last year’s team, because I couldn’t explain it – it really seems to be a matter of toughness. Having a borderline-great defense certainly helps, because it lowers the bar for what’s needed from the offense when it’s not clicking. It also allows for games to be slowed down and ground out, and I still maintain that this team would be well-served staying in the bottom third of the league in pace. But the team also needs to have a fairly firm belief in its ability to come back to not shut down – we can’t assume to know the psyche of professional athletes, but it stands to reason that motivation and dedication are strongly tied to the perceived probability of a positive outcome.

This year’s Raptors team refuses to quit, because they know they’re good and they know already, five weeks into a very long season, that they can’t be held down. They’ve lost by more than six points ONCE this year. When all evidence suggested they were done when the Hawks’ lead swelled to 17 midway through the third, nobody on the floor or on the bench would accept as much. Lowry gutted out the third despite his illness, DeMar DeRozan turned in a quality quarter on the offensive end (he also carried the offense in the first half), and Terrence Ross played perhaps his best stretch since the Portland Pro-Am league this summer.

That 17-point lead was suddenly down to nine entering the fourth, and a single-digit lead is a more than reasonable target; the Raptors hadn’t made a comeback that large yet this year, but they’ve successfully erased end-of-third deficits of six and eight.

What followed were 12 minutes that reminded me why I completely let my guard down at 5-0 and embraced a red-hot Raptors team despite all lessons from Bayes. Lowry went absolutely insane, Patrick Patterson played his best quarter of the season, Cory Joseph turned in solid minutes, and Lucas No-freaking-gueira, the lottery ticket the Raptors received from these same Hawks to switch John Salmons’ partially guaranteed salary out for Lou Williams’ fully guaranteed one, played a full quarter for the first time in his NBA career.

Head coach Dwane Casey navigated the fourth (and most of the game) masterfully, much as that will pain some of you to read, opting to keep an ineffective-despite-inspired Carroll and an ineffective-because-hands-are-important Bismack Biyombo for the entirety of the fourth quarter. The Lowry-Joseph-Ross-Patterson-Nogueira grouping was given six minutes, and DeRozan swapped in for Ross for the final six minutes. That’s an enormous amount of faith in several players who haven’t been regular contributors, a major dice-roll on dancing with the one who brought you, so to speak, and a lesson (perhaps to himself) in the value of breaking out of your comfort zone.

The late-game execution was far better than usual, too, with DeRozan using a single possession (he went to the line). Patterson spotted up, Joseph worked as a funky second ball-handler to mix things up with weird drives, and Nogueira showed a great deal of improvement as a screen-setter and a dive man, throwing home two alley-oops.

Of course, late-game execution is a lot easier when Lowry is melting the entire state of Georgia off the map. Lowry had the best individual quarter in Raptors history, scoring a franchise-record 22 points in the frame and leaving the Hawks to mostly shrug and doff their caps.

Yeah, I mean, look at this. He had to sub out of the game with a hand to his mouth an hour earlier, and he’s doing this, then sprinting back to disrupt in semi-transition, then doing it all over again.

Lowry finished with 31 points on the night, every single one of them coming at the rim, at the free-throw line, or from behind the arc. He was a model of efficiency, a Daryl Morey wet dream come to life, and he added five rebounds, five assists, two steals, and a long stint chasing Kyle Korver around screens, to boot. For all of the amazing Lowry performances we’ve seen – and there have been no shortage in his time with the Raptors – this may stand as the most impressive.

The fact that Nogueira’s excellent performance, worthy of the post-game interview, is getting saved for a post this afternoon speaks volumes about Lowry’s heroics – An affable sophomore who never plays turned in an awesome game out of nowhere with a ridiculous plus-minus, and it’s the B-plot. Because again, the Raptors are becoming a convoluted underdog serial, Lowry it’s primary protagonist as the undersized point guard who couldn’t stick in other locales, broke down after securing tenure as a star, and subsequently faced questions about his weight and status in the league’s top tier.

Lowry couldn’t be more of an avatar for the 2015-16 version of this team if he were a literal Raptor. It probably shouldn’t surprise that his fight through illness rallied a fight in the rest of the team.

Kyle Lowry Over Everything.

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