Patterson isn’t here for We The Gold, and other practice notes

There really wasn’t much going on at practice on Thursday, with the overwhelming sense, like before Game 5, that the team is tired of talking about things and is ready to get to Indiana and try to close out. There wasn’t even an advanced copy of Views playing when the gym opened up to the media, which was wildly disappointing. A few notes and quotes to throw your way, though.

Getting off to a good start

Also wildly disappointing have been the starts the Raptors have gotten out to in Games 4 and 5. Head coach Dwane Casey continues to stress turnovers as a way the Raptors have kind of got the Pacers going, but outside of protecting the ball, a better start really seems to be about mentality. The Raptors had it in Games 2 and 3 but seemed to lose the plot until the fourth quarter of Game 5, and so they’re

“The thing you gotta do is treat this like Game 7,” Casey said. “We can’t go in and get ambushed.”

Again, though, they said the same things heading into Game 5. It’s certainly worth hoping they get off to a better start, but without a tangible reason for why they’re coming out cold over the last two, it’s hard to suggest a fix, especially since the logical starting lineup tweak didn’t work out in its initial run.

“If there’s a coach in the world that can say ‘I know this is gonna happen,’ I want to meet him,” Casey said. “I trust our players. We prepare. I trust what they’re gonna do, I trust their work habits, I trust their intensity, their toughness. We’ve done it all year. From a coaching standpoint, that’s what you’ve gotta do is trust and believe.

“I believe in our guys.”

The guys believe in each other, too, which is important, and the Game 5 comeback could only have helped in that sense. So, too, may the fact that some of the Raptors have been here before.

Drawing on 2014, but not

Part of the reason the Raptors may feel the urgency to close out is that part of this core was in the same place two years ago. Kyle Lowry, Patrick Patterson, DeMar DeRozan, Terrence Ross, and Jonas Valanciunas were all a part of the 2013-14 squad that made a surprise push to the postseason, got up 3-2 on Brooklyn, and then allowed the series to come back to Toronto for Game 7, only to lose by a single possession.

They’re trying not to think about that in specific terms, because where would the value be in that?

“What happened two years ago is in the past, as well as what happened last year’s in the past,” Patrick Patterson said. “We focus on this opportunity that we have now…At the end of the day, we don’t want to think about it. We know what happened at the end. We don’t want to think about it because bad thoughts, bad memories come to mind.”

I’m in agreement here that focusing on negatives and failures in the past, especially when they’re not patently applicable to this series, isn’t for the best. Thinking positively, thinking about ways to win rather than lose, visualizing success, those are all more valuable, I think, than worrying about what has or could go wrong.

Fans and the media certainly remember that collapse, understandably, but the Raptors have 10 different players on the roster, those five holdovers have shifted into or near the peaks of their careers. They’re keenly aware of that history, but any idea of trying to vanquish it or redeem themselves from it seems misplaced.

“Somehow, someway, we have to flush what happened two years ago or 20 years ago to this franchise,” Casey said. “What’s the most important thing is now. The sense of urgency of now. Not two years ago, not thinking about what happened and those ghosts or demons or whatever.”

The Raptors aren’t dwelling, but it’s clear they want to come back to Toronto preparing for a Game 1, not a Game 7.

“That’s how we’re approaching it,” Patterson said. “That’s how we’ve been talking about approaching it, as far as treating it as if there’s no Game 7. It’s a win-or-go-home type of scenario. In our mindset, that’s how we’re going to carry on further. With this game tomorrow, if we lose, we go home. Everyone wants to win, everyone wants to perform well badly enough to do whatever it takes to get the win.”

“We have to go out there and fight for our lives,” Lowry added, before being asked about lessons from the Nets series. “Don’t let it get back home. We gotta take advantage of the opportunity we have at hand.”

We the gold…homie, stop

Patterson was not impressed with Indiana’s decision to give away shirts that say “#WeTheGold” (probably because it’s corny as hell, though he didn’t say so). It did lead to a great quote from Patterson on Raptors fans:

I always find it funny. I told Jonny Lee this the other day, and I’ll share it with y’all. I always feel some type of way whenever we go on the road. And it starts at home. The Canadian fans, they sing the national anthem with pride. They’ve done it for a long time and they do it every single opportunity they get, whether it’s regular season, whether it’s preseason, whether it’s playoffs, whether the singer allows them to sing it and holds the mic up in the air, they’re constantly singing it. In Indiana, or when we go on the road, the Canadian fans are there in the crowd, they’re signing along to the national anthem, they’re proud. And then I feel like the Pacer fans, or any other fans, when the American national anthem comes on, they do it in spite of us. They just do it because we did it. They try to do it to be loud or be obnoxious.
Same thing with, probably, We The Gold. Just because we do We The North, they just trying to find some thing to get at us. I have different feelings toward that…Flattering? No, not at all.

Here’s the shirt in question:

Getting ready for tomorrow’s Gold Out, the first t-shirts have been placed at @TheFieldhouse.#WeTheGold pic.twitter.com/wnKPbFLX6r
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) April 28, 2016