ICYMI from Raptors Republic
A beautiful comeback, and other post-game notes | Raptors Republic
In this case, how the Raptors got it was searching, grasping, tinkering, and experimenting until they found the right energy. They played their backup center, a one-way terror but one you almost have to play small with to keep spacing tolerable. They rode their struggling All-Stars, buoyed by the faith that they’d eventually find their shots, or make important plays – like a well-timed charge drawn on a third attempt – when the moment called for it. They didn’t just play small, they played a two at the four. They played a rookie who was plying his craft as a D-League regular just a few months ago, and they put him on the best player in the series so far when it mattered most.
They went way outside of the box and way outside of their comfort zone, and maybe there are lessons in searching so viscerally.
“Somebody asked a question, ‘Where did that come from?’ I gotta look at that,” Casey said. “We want to bottle that up. Because that toughness is what you’ve gotta play with no matter who’s in the game. We gotta use that as an example of how you have to play. Because, again Friday night’s going to be a war, it’s going to be a battle, it’s going to be like it was last Saturday. If we don’t come in with that mentality like we had in the fourth quarter, it’s going to be a long day.”
Chemistry and momentum are unexplainable, fickle, fleeting, ethereal things. The Raptors captured them for the most important 12-minute stretch of the season and, quite possibly, for the most important 12-minute stretch for long-term future of this core. They’ll need to search for it once again in Game 6 with the recognition that this series still isn’t over, whatever the historical odds may say (they say the favorite, once up 3-2, wins 92.1 percent of the time).
The hope is always that you don’t need a quarter like the fourth quarter the Raptors turned in on Tuesday, because you play a better first 36 minutes and find that energy and hunger and desperation earlier. They shouldn’t have needed it. But it was beautiful that they did.
Game 5 Post-Game Reaction Podcast – Norm-al Service Resumed | Raptors Republic
The Raptors storm back in the fourth to complete a comeback and take a 3-2 series lead heading back to Indiana. Norman Powell has now officially taken over the title of 6-God.
This thing about starting | Raptors Republic
The reality is, Scola never made sense in the starting lineup, and the Raptors won 56 games in spite of that setup, not because of it. The Raptors had four primary units that involved the Scola-Valanciunas frontcourt, and each was summarily played off the floor during the regular season. Seven of the nine most common Scola-Valanciunas lineups were outscored. Scola had the worst net rating of anyone who finished the season on the team (Patterson was second to only Thompson, who had but a cup of coffee). The Raptors were woeful in the first six minutes of each half and made up for it with extreme success the rest of the time. The quantitative reasons go on and on, and there are strong qualitative reasons backing up a switch to Patterson as the starter.
Those qualitative reasons are in large part why the issue is so maddening. This isn’t a case of the numbers standing in contrast to old school basketball dogma, with a change in starting lineup representing some fundamental shift in basketball philosophy. Instead, it always made more sense to start Patterson alongside Valanciunas and leverage Scola off the bench, with the Patterson-Valanciunas pairing standing as complementary at both ends.
The Raptors wound up having one of the best benches in basketball as a result of bringing Patterson in as a reserve, but again, that’s not a reason for keeping him there. The bench wasn’t good because it was great as a unit. It was, but it was great in large part because it has good players, and because Patterson was excellent. There’s a reason he had one of the best on-off marks in team history, why he should have been in the conversation for Sixth Man of the Year, and why this feels like the 20th time I’ve written that he should start: It’s because he’s quite good, and markedly better than Scola.
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The greatest playoff game in Raptors history and the margins of life | The Defeated
But I hadn’t. I hadn’t seen the Raptors play as hard as they did in the fourth quarter. I hadn’t seen the Raptors gnash their teeth and bite the bullet — not quite like that. To hold the Pacers to just nine points, turning them over seven times, while running coherent offenses that prized ball movement over mindless isolation. I saw the Raptors reach their absolute potential.
With that I saw Terrence Ross make a clutch basket (we’re talking about Terrence fucking Ross over here). I saw Lowry draw a charge on George. I saw Bismack Biyombo rip down rebound after rebound. I saw Lowry torpedo himself into outer space, freed from the weighty shackles of surplus carbohydrates and frictioned fats, to keep possession alive and preserve a precarious two-point lead.
I saw Norman Powell, a stone-faced second-round rookie, sport a Superman cape, rip George of the basketball near halfcourt, then soar through the air for a powerful one-hand dunk to render the deficit no more. I had an outer body experience in that moment — so much so that I had even forgotten that I, like 15,000 around me at the ACC, was wearing a cartoonishly ugly beaver on my chest. Fuck that, it didn’t matter to me anymore. I was awash in the moment soaking in something I had never seen.
And yet it all circles back to a fingertip that would have rendered everything moot. All the chest-thumping, the floor-stamping, the balloon-banging — it would have all been for naught. A franchise turned on a dime with that shot, a dozen editors’ deadline stories dashed, a city’s confusing clash with identity and validation capitulated.
Raptors find It in nick of time in Game 5: Arthur | Toronto Star
But Pacers coach Frank Vogel, again — again! — left his bench out there to start the fourth, even though that bench has been a weakness all season and all series, and George had been incandescent. When George and George Hill finally came back, Kyle Lowry and his swollen elbow had made a handful of plays, and the 13-point lead had been cut nearly in half. On using his bench, Vogel said, “I chose to trust those guys. Those guys have been good to us. They had a tough stretch there.” On sitting Paul George, he said, “He looked pretty gassed at the end of the third.” George, for his part, said he was tired, but not so tired he couldn’t play.
Vogel opened a door, and Casey found a combination, and the Raptors crashed their way through. The run was 23-2 over 10 1/2 minutes with the smallest lineups they could manage: Joseph, Lowry, Norm Powell, Terrence Ross or DeRozan, and Biyombo. Amazing.
“I thought we were going to go down with the guys who were swinging,” said Raptors coach Dwane Casey.
They tied the game on Powell stealing a pass in cold blood and nearly missing the dunk at the other end. DeRozan and Joseph grabbed back the lead. By the time Indiana’s Solomon Hill released a three-pointer a fraction of a second after the buzzer sounded — Raptor rookie Powell was supposed to foul Paul George but didn’t — Toronto had played the last 12:49 on a mind-blowing 27-9 run. Asked what he was thinking as Hill let the ball go a few fractions of a second too late, DeMarre Carroll said, “Paul Pierce’s shot from (Game 6 between Atlanta and Washington) last year when we watched it. He shot it so slow, it was one of those things, that’s why we have replay. Thank God we have replay.”
It always comes back to Paul Pierce, somehow. You want It? The Raptors found It. What the hell, how the hell. The Raptors have had to play so badly to lose to the Pacers in this series, but in this game they grabbed the damned thing back. Afterwards general manager Masai Ujiri was leaning against a wall, and Pacers general manager Kevin Pritchard walked by, pulling a suitcase. They shook hands. “Masai, hell of a game.” “Hell of a game,” Ujiri replied.
Raptors’ Norman Powell plays well beyond rookie status | Toronto Sun
Powell wasn’t solely responsible for shutting off Paul George’s water, but he was the primary defender on the man who had 37 points through three quarters and was held to all of two in the fourth.
If Powell wasn’t the first name on most Raptors lips after the game, he was a close second.
“Proud, ecstatic, so happy, especially for Norm,” Patrick Patterson said after the game. “Him just not giving up on the defensive end. He battled Paul George hard and he accepted that challenge and those guys are the reason we won this game tonight. They came into the game, changed it completely and gave us an opportunity to win and we pulled through in the end.”
Even Lowry, who quickly quashed the suggestion that maybe Powell was no longer a rookie given his heady play these past two months and last night in particular, had to give the kid his due.
“He played well, the kid’s been doing well, he’s been doing it for the last month and a half, two months now,” Lowry said. “He’s been phenomenal the whole season. I tell him to stay patient, he went to the D -League and did his stints down there, did them no problem, didn’t sulk. He came back up and then he got a chance to play and his confidence has been growing.”
Raptors stage furious comeback to edge Pacers: Six things to know | CBSSports.com
About that 23-2 fourth-quarter run
All of that good will the Raptors built up in Games 2 and 3 looked to be eroding. They had a horrendous effort in Game 4 to allow the Pacers to tie up the series, and then throughout the majority of Game 5, the Raptors were struggling at home. They couldn’t stop the 3-point barrage of the Pacers. They couldn’t stop Paul George. They couldn’t get anything going their way. And then the fourth quarter started, and Frank Vogel was trying to get George a bit of a rest.
Dwane Casey decided to stick with Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan. He threw defensive menace Norman Powell on the court to continue making life difficult for the Pacers. Bismack Biyombo was controlling the paint. And the Raptors just kept attacking. They kept forcing Indiana misses. That lead started falling and it kept falling, until finally Toronto had gone on a 23-2 run to close the third quarter.
During this time, six different Raptors hit a shot while only C.J. Miles was able to get a bucket for the Pacers. George had one shot attempt and two turnovers. The Pacers had five turnovers in those nine and a half minutes. Toronto had four assists in that stretch.
By the time it was all said and done, the Pacers avoided the worst playoff fourth quarter in NBA history, but they became just the 14th team in NBA history to fail to score double digits in the fourth quarter of a playoff game. The Pacers’ previous fourth-quarter low was 10 points in 1998 against the Knicks. The Raptors’ previous best for fourth-quarter points allowed in a playoff game was 12 points to Brooklyn in 2014.
How the Pacers couldn’t find even a couple of extra buckets there was just brutal for them and cost them the game.
A stunning Raptors victory to remember forever | Toronto Sun
Somewhere, I could hear Chuck Swirsky yelling, “Raptors win! Raptors win! Raptors win!” You had to hear it three times just to believe it.
Nobody was quite certain about what had just happened. Their heads were spinning. Their eyes drenched in sweat. What just happened? How did it happen?
A devastating loss became a stunning victory. A series on the brink became a playoff series that’s one win away from the first Raptors best-of-seven win. A reason to wonder became the rarest of treats — a Raptors victory to remember. Forever.
And on Tuesday night, when at the end of the story, it wasn’t about how they didn’t do it, but how the Indiana Pacers let this get away and how the Raptors snatched a win from another dreadful playoff defeat. And how there’s a minute now to exhale, get out of the fetal position, and go on to Game 6 in Indianapolis on Friday night.
Raptors edge Pacers in wild Game 5 thriller | Toronto Star
DeRozan was part of one of the funkiest small lineups that coach Dwane Casey could have come up with, a group that outscored the Pacers 25-9 in the fourth quarter with efficiency on offence and grit on defence.
It was basically a position-less group: Cory Joseph, Kyle Lowry, Norm Powell, DeRozan and Bismack Biyombo on the court for an astonishing finish.
“That group that was in there had the toughness, the want-to, the inner, ‘Okay, I’m tired of getting my butt kicked and we’re going to war,’ ” Casey said. “That group that was in there, I thought, had that. It was just about mixing, finding, searching for a group that was doing that because we weren’t getting it in the first three quarters.”
The group — and Casey made sure to point out it wasn’t just one player — also managed to limit the damage by Indiana’s Paul George. George did finish with 39 points, but only two on three field-goal attempts in the final quarter against the odd lineup.
What fans said about Raptors’ Game 5 win“I don’t even think I looked at it like that. It was just a group out there that was playing hard, playing together. We were one string,” Lowry said.
“With that group, we just played. It was like we had no choice, just grind it out. Biz was rebounding the ball well, Cory was pushing, (I) was pushing, DeMar had it going a little bit. So, we kind of spaced it out with four smalls and Biz set screens and we got good shots.”
And DeRozan made his count, as he said all week he would, and as his teammates expected.
No heartbreak for Raptors this time | Toronto Sun
Biyombo had a huge impact on the court in Game 5 and said he could see Toronto’s rally coming.
“I swear to you, I sat on the bench and I said to myself from the beginning of the game, ‘I don’t know how, I know we’re going to come up with this win. I don’t know how, but I know somehow, we’re going to get back into this game,’ ” Biyombo said.
“It was just a little gap where we were looking to find the energy. How can you push the other players to be on the same page as you? It was a dunk we were looking for, or three points, or one stop, and obviously we got all those things at the beginning of the fourth quarter. And that set the tone for the rest.”
But Biyombo won’t rest on a 3-2 lead.
“We can’t let them score 99 points. That’s too many points. We’re going to go to Indiana and take care of our business.
“We’ve got to give the fans something to be proud of, and talk about.”
From their depth, Raptors find way to rise to historic comeback | Sportsnet.ca
But Norman Powell is new here. He knows not a franchise’s pain. So when he found himself isolated on George on the wing midway through the fourth quarter, with an improbable Raptors comeback brewing, he attacked. He went right at George, who was bobbling a questionable pass from Monta Ellis, stripped the ball and took it the length of the court for a dunk that tied the game 92-92 with 6:31 to play.
The ACC has never been louder. It wasn’t a moment; it was an event.
“It’s crazy. This is something that I live for, to be a part of that,” said Powell, the 45th-overall pick in 2015 who has turned himself into, arguably, the most productive rookie in the NBA since the all-star break. “To feel the environment and how into it the crowd was. It’s great to see that.”
It was the turning point. Powell’s dunk was an exclamation mark on a franchise-record post-season comeback that was hard to see coming. The Raptors were down 15 with 49 seconds left in the third quarter. Powell’s dunk had been preceded by a Terrence Ross three, the only shot he made all game. It came with three starters on the bench. It was followed by triples from DeMar DeRozan and Cory Joseph — perhaps the last two Raptors anyone would tap to blow a game open from behind the arc.
The whole thing was nuts.
Raptors pull off huge win after dramatic comeback | Toronto Sun
The series heads back to Indianapolis on Friday for Game 6. The Raptors will have the chance to close it out, but they might want to find a new script.
The one for Tuesday’s win is probably not going to work again.
Short of four or five Raptors colliding and coming up lame, the game could not have started worse for the home side.
George found the range early. Jonas Valanciunas committed four turnovers in about two minutes and the Raptors inability to guard the three-point line hit a season-high low.
If there was a positive it was DeRozan finally getting going or at least getting to the line which he did six times in that first quarter alone.
Everything else was rather forgettable for the home side.
Raptors’ redeem team sparks comeback | TSN
“It’s crazy,” Powell said of the moment, easily the biggest of his young career. “This is something that I live for, to be a part of that.”
“To have the trust from the coaching staff in the playoffs my first year is something I dreamed of and wanted. I didn’t know how it was going to happen but I’m glad it did and I’m glad I’m continuing to take advantage of the opportunity.”It was a night of adjustments, appropriate considering the countless amount of times that word had been used in the days leading up to Game 5. Patrick Patterson started his first game of the season, knocking Luis Scola out of the rotation entirely. DeRozan finally found his game, scoring 34 points, eight of them coming while George was on the bench to begin the second quarter, another lineup change Casey deserves credit for. However, the decision to trust in and stick with that strange, unorthodox, yet highly effective fourth quarter lineup, the Raptors’ own redeem team, may end up being the very thing to turn this series.
“I’ve got to look at that [fourth-quarter run],” Casey said, with Game 6 scheduled for Friday in Indiana. “We want to bottle that up because that toughness is what you’ve got to play with no matter who’s in the game.”
Five key moments in Raptors’ Game 5 win | Toronto Star
Powell picks up Carroll
Going into this series, everyone knew that guarding George would be the toughest assignment on the floor. George had 22 points at the half and it was clear that this would be a big night for him. It fell on DeMarre Carroll to simply make those baskets tough to come by. The Raptors forward did that, for the most part, but picking up his second, third and fourth fouls in the third quarter felt like a death blow. George made two free throws to hit 35 points as Carroll took a seat with 4:09 left in the quarter. Rookie Norman Powell picked up the toughest assignment on the court and George only scored four points the rest of the way.
Raptors stage massive comeback in the fourth, beat Pacers 102-99 | Raptors HQ
The Raptors were bad for 75 percent of this game. Maybe it was the change to the starting lineup with Patrick Patterson in for Luis Scola (who didn’t play at all), maybe it was DeMarre Carroll (who is working very hard to try to slow Paul George down) feeling a little extra creaky today, maybe it was Jonas Valanciunas getting whacked in the head one too many times — something was up. Kyle Lowry, who acknowledged his poor play on Sunday, looked wildly out of sorts. There was no spark. There was no life. Toronto, the team and the city, were ready to call it a series.
But, math. There are 48 minutes in a basketball game. And for those final 12, the Raptors worked to bring things back into the balance, even if it looked and often felt absurd to watch. To start the fourth, the Raptors went on a 21-2 run. They finished by outscoring the Pacers 25-9. By the time the final buzzer sounded, after a just too late Solomon Hill three was called off, the Raptors had won 102-99. It was one of the more astounding runs in team history.
Free Association Podcast: Dissecting Raptors’ Game 5 win | Sportsnet.ca
JD and Donnovan start the podcast off with the epic fourth-quarter comeback that started with a 21-2 Raptors run, and debate if Frank Vogel rested Paul George too long. As usual Donnovan Bennett heaps all the praise on Norman Powell.
Tim Micallef surprises and calls into the podcast to talk about the growth DeMar DeRozan showed in Game 5.
The guys end the show discussing Dwane Casey’s choice to replace Luis Scola in the starting lineup with Patrick Patterson.
HQ Overtime Post-Game Show: Let’s talk about the epic comeback | Raptors HQ
Are you breathing okay? Do you need a water? The Toronto Raptors won Game 5 at home, despite playing 36 minutes of putrid basketball. HQ editor Harsh Dave and I will attempt to discuss the epic fourth quarter that turned it around, DeMar DeRozan’s resurgent night, and what could possibly be in store for Game 6 on Friday.
A photo posted by Graphic Designer x Raptors Fan (@letsgoraptors) on
Paul George: ‘We failed to live up to the moment’ in Game 5 collapse | Indy Star
While in the interview room, George tried to remain politically correct in responding to a question. Where did things go wrong, he was asked. George initially stammered out some sounds before his words targeted the truth.
“I think our guys individually know that they have to bring it,” George said. “I’m not about putting guys down, putting teammates down, but individually everybody has to bring it.”
“We’ve got to put this one away. It’s a new game, a new day,” George said, trying to sound motivational. “Friday we have to get a win. It’s a must win. It’s awful to have a chance to win on the road, go up 3-2 and come back home but once again, we failed to live up to that moment. We got to do it in Game 6.”
Unfathomable 4th Quarter Meltdown Costs Pacers Game 5 | 8 Points 9 Seconds
As he did in the second quarter, Frank Vogel trusted his reserves and put out a lineup with Ty Lawson, Rodney Stuckey, and C.J. Miles on the perimeter. It was a mistake. It was so obviously a mistake. This all-bench nonsense had buried the team in Game 2 on multiple occasions as Toronto’s Kyle Lowry + bench quintet ripped Vogel’s tissue-paper lineups in half. And his five-reserves unit had gotten ripped up in this very game in the second quarter.
Though it had played relatively well, only giving up a small amount or even extending the Pacers lead in Game 4, there were reams of video, statistical, and eye-test evidence that this bullshit does not work. It was a terrible, awful idea to try it again in such a high-leverage moment.
Everybody watching the game knew this was not a good idea, and those willing to accept that Vogel would — once again — put a team on the floor that wasn’t led by one of Paul George, George Hill or Monta Ellis were adamant that Vogel ABSOLUTELY had to eject from this minutes-of-rest-stealing strategy as soon as it started to look shaky.
To use an analogy, it was fine to stay in your house with the windows boarded up as a tropical storm started to approach and the trajectory was not set. There was a chance you would be fine. Storms don’t always become hurricanes. And even hurricanes don’t always hit. But this stance becomes riskier and increasingly foolish the longer you wait. And you can only wait so long. Once the weatherman actually predicts, with near-certain accuracy that the storm would become a Category 5 hurricane and tact into your city, you have to get the hell out of town.
Vogel stayed put. And the hurricane destroyed his house and killed all his pets.
The whole time, it was obvious, even to an idiot like me, that he was pushing his luck. And then doubling down on that risk. And then straight up acting like an idiot himself.
A photo posted by Blake Murphy (@eblakemurphy) on
Doyel: Paul George’s hero act falls a quarter short | Indy Star
Since 1999, only one No. 7 seed has beaten a No. 2 seed in a best-of-seven NBA playoff series. The No. 2 seeds have won the other 33 series – they’re 33-1 in the first round – but the Pacers were close, so close, to being in control. Paul George had them there.
And then he went to the bench, and some Pacers fans – OK, a lot of Pacers fans – were screaming on social media Tuesday night as the fourth quarter began with the Pacers ahead 90-77 but the Raptors rallying and George resting. One minute passed, and the lead was down to 11. Then it was nine, then seven. George came in with 8:36 left, he and George Hill, but the spell had been broken – the Pacers’ spell on the Raptors, and Paul George’s spell on himself.
Now he was fumbling the ball away, leading to Toronto dunks at the other end. He was missing shots. He finished with 39 points, eight rebounds, eight assists and two steals, and somehow his game was incomplete. Know how many players in the last 32 years have put up 39-8-8-2 in a playoff game? Just eight: Jordan. Bird. Kobe. Barkley. Drexler. LeBron. McGrady. Rondo. Paul George became No. 9 on Tuesday night, but here’s what he didn’t do:
He didn’t shoot the ball in the final seconds.
It was the right basketball play, if the wrong result. He was double-teamed and off balance. Solomon Hill, 3-for-3 from long range, was alone in the corner.
“It was a great play,” Vogel said. “Just a great play. One frame shy of being a tie game and going to overtime.”
NBA Playoffs: Fourth quarter incompetence dooms Pacers in Game 5 loss to Raptors | Indy Cornrows
But a combination of utter incompetence from the bench and a sense of rejuvenation for the Raptors landed Indiana their most perplexing loss of the season in a season that’s had nothing but perplexing losses. It’s a loss that pushes the Pacers to the brink of elimination, now trailing the best of seven series 2-3 with a do-or-die Game 6 on tap for Friday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
Game Rap: Raptors 102, Pacers 99 | Toronto Raptors
RAPTORS PLAYER(S) OF THE GAME
DeMar DeRozan had a breakout game on Tuesday, scoring 34 points to lead Toronto. He shot 10-for-22 from the floor, 2-for-4 from beyond the arc, and 12-for-13 from the free throw line. DeRozan played 40 minutes and added three rebounds, two assists and a steal. While DeRozan’s entire game was impressive, getting to the line was especially encouraging for a player who averaged 8.4 free throw attempts per game in the regular season
Kelly: Raptors finally reverse the spell of Pacers villain Paul George | The Globe and Mail
The Indiana Pacers’ unsmiling assassin was in the midst of one of his signature sporting crime rampages on local streets. Standing on 37 points, he’d single-handedly stolen the game and probably the series. George was about to become another villain a whole city can’t ever forget. The list is so long, Canada ought to have a Basketball Anti-Hall of Fame.
Then something happened that never happens to the Toronto Raptors in these situations – things started going right.
Over ten remarkable minutes spanning the third and fourth quarters, Toronto turned a 15-point deficit into a six-point lead. Given all that had gone before, the 23-2 run may be the most unlikely in local history.
The sweetest part of it was watching Indiana’s Rodney Stuckey get inexplicably tied up by his own legs, lose the ball out of bounds, followed by Terrence Ross – a player who has been zero-for-four billion from three-point distance – sink his first trey of the game.
A few seconds later, Norman Powell stole a Pacers pass and ran the length of the floor for a jam. Tie game. That’s when you knew.
Post Game Report Card: DeRozan and Raptors battle back to win Game 5 against Pacers | Raptors Cage
Defence: A-
The Raptors played their best defence when it truly mattered, which was when they locked down Paul George in the 4th quarter, only allowing him to score 2 of his 39 points. Before that, George looked unstoppable by going 10-16 from the field in the first three quarters.
The Raptors struggled early in the game, allowing the Pacers ball movement to pick up 17 assists on 22 made field goals. Because of that, the Pacers were able to convert on 11-17 of their 3-pointers, helping them go up by 9 points at the half.
Valanciunas finished the game with 2 blocks, while Biyombo provided his fair share by finishing with a plus/minus of +10. Powell and Lowry played some of their best defence around the perimeter, combining for 3 steals, including this one to tie the game.
Toronto Raptors complete miracle comeback by going with small lineup | ESPN
“We gave it our all,” Biyombo said.
Lineups with him as the only big man outscored the Pacers by 25 points, according to tracking by ESPN Stats & Info.
“We didn’t do a very good job in the first half, but we had to find a way to get back in the game,” Biyombo added. “More than anything, we kept playing hard each and every possession. We still have one more to go, so we have to go back to Indiana and take care of business.”
George ended up a plus-15, which means the Pacers were outscored by 18 when he wasn’t on the court.
Over the first 8:40 of the fourth, the Raptors shot 8-for-15 from the field while limiting Indiana to 1-for-7.
Everyone contributed on both ends.
Like Lowry said, Toronto slowly chipped away, allowing its defense to spark its offense. Next thing you knew, Powell was flying in for an emphatic dunk to tie the game at 92-92. Then Joseph and DeRozan were hitting back-to-back 3-pointers to put Toronto up 98-92.
With each play, the crowd erupted in a deafening roar. From there, it was about holding on, about things going Toronto’s way for once.
NBA Playoffs: Raptors’ defense key in Game 5 win over Pacers | SI.com
All of the hard work it took for Toronto to claw back into this game was very nearly undone by a few minor errors in this final 2.7 seconds. Lowry opted to defend the inbound pass with his hands down, as if he might spring up from a half-crouch and snatch the ball out of mid-air. Powell played what was ultimately a desperation pass for a possible deflection, and in the process over-committed just a few steps to George’s right. It was that window that allowed George to step into open air and lull Joseph into a double team – leaving Solomon Hill completely unguarded in the process. Playoff teams have been punished for less. The chaotic sequence (lengthened slightly by Hill’s release), however, was just slow enough for the Raptors to ride out a 3-2 series lead upon video review. Hard work, renewed focus, and a precious tenth of a second gave Toronto a winning formula in a game it couldn’t afford to lose.
Q&A with Toronto Raptors coach Dwane Casey | ESPN
What have you learned from the past two playoff experiences you’ve had here in Toronto?
Casey: Belief in our players and belief in the system that we have. You’re not going to come out and invent something new. You learn to make adjustments: What adjustments can we make? What adjustments can we handle? All those things you learn over the years — not only just the past two series but even [as an assistant before] with Dallas and Seattle — whatever team you’ve been with, you’ve learned something from those series, and you bring that information and that experience with you.
The impossible task of evaluating DeMar DeRozan’s future with the Raptors | Raptors HQ
DeRozan has been a disaster in four games against the Pacers. He’s taken 71 shots in the series — fifty of which have missed. After posting a nearly 2-to-1 assist-turnover ratio in the regular season, DeRozan has coughed up as many balls as he has delivered to his teammates for scores. Normally someone who takes up residence at the free throw line, DeRozan has failed to get to the stripe in two games against Indy. Such a thing didn’t happen once in the regular season. His 3.5 PER is not a typo. Even his “good” game on Thursday saw him go 7-of-19. He was somehow a team-worst -1 in a game the Raptors won by 16.
That’s now eight-straight playoff games in which DeRozan has failed to affect winning. He wasn’t the biggest issue the Raptors had against the Wizards last April, but he certainly didn’t lift the team either. His shot was wayward, and his free-throw rate was as equally minuscule as it is this time around. That he’s doubled-down with another poor playoff outing this year has, understandably, incited calls for change.
We’ve come to learn over the last seven years that DeRozan’s flaws are such that he’ll never be able to be the best player on a team serious about winning a title; he probably isn’t even good enough to be the second guy in a contending Big Three. He has however, been the leading scorer and co-offensive fulcrum for a team that has set a franchise wins total in three straight regular seasons. For some fans, who view success through the prism of what happens in spring, that’s not enough. The playoff downfalls have clearly soured a large swatch of the fan base on DeRozan being a part of the Raptors’ future.
Terrence Ross & His Future As A Raptor | RealGM
It was a mistake extending him and he’s proven it with his lack of focus.
Jacking up contested 3 after contested 3. He missed 4 times refusing to pass the ball everytime he touched it. He no longer defends letting Stuckey and C.j get into the lanes at will. HE HAD AN OFFENSIVE INTERFERENCE ON A 3 POINT SHOT!
He needs to go.
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