The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Toronto Raptors have lost the opening two games of their series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, and if you pay attention to Toronto media and fans, they’ll tell you right now that this is always how it was going to be, the Cavaliers are just too good, and there really was no other outcome against LeBron James. This is just fine, they’ll say, because it’s better than being bad, which was a large portion of the franchise’s history, and even if it kinda sucks watching these games, it’s still a better outcome because what else could the Raptors be? The answer to that question though was answered many times over in the leadup to the series, when many, including me, said this was supposed to be a competitive series.
This feels a little bit like revisionist history to me, because at the trade deadline, when the team acquired Serge Ibaka and PJ Tucker and set up an extremely expensive summer in order to bring back the same core next year, the idea seemed to be that this was a better team. This was a team that was built to attack specifically this Cleveland team, and a team that could compete against them. Sure, LeBron was always going to be the issue in any series, but the Raptors were supposed to be their toughest competition yet against a weaker Cavaliers team than they’ve had since LeBron arrived. Cleveland’s defense was an issue(and still has been in this series), and the Indiana Pacers, a team that on paper is far more flawed than Toronto, kept games close against Cleveland in the first round.
The series isn’t over, and maybe the Raptors turn this around, or at least take a few games, but to this point not only have the games not been close but the Cavaliers haven’t looked threatened in the slightest. Watch the body language of the two teams after whistles and you see very different things, a Cleveland squad just having fun running up the score and always keeping the game just out of reach despite the feeling they really aren’t pushing themselves as hard as they can against a Raptors team struggling to tread water. There was always a feeling in game two that if the Raptors figured things out and made a run, LeBron would put it right back out of reach with a stretch of two or three incredible minutes of dominance, and the Raptors could do nothing to take that away.
There are a lot of things that went wrong for the Raptors so far in the series, whether it’s the Cavaliers simply not missing from three-point range or the Raptors’ role players struggling to hit their open shots, but still, those somewhat feel like excuses more than reasons, because the reality was Cleveland just knew how to beat Toronto. Throw traps at DeMar DeRozan to take the ball out of his hands, he won’t pass out quickly enough to punish the Cavaliers hard for doing so, and that’s worked. Let DeMarre Carroll, Patrick Patterson, Serge Ibaka, and PJ Tucker shoot, because they won’t hit enough to kill you, and that’s worked. Attack Jonas Valanciunas in pick and rolls on defense, he’ll sit back and someone will be open either on the screen itself or popping out after setting it, and that’s worked. The Cleveland game plan made sense, and has worked because it attacks the core of who the Raptors are. Even if Toronto makes the series longer than a sweep – and that hardly feels like a guarantee, it doesn’t feel competitive at all.
That’s not even to lay the blame at any particular player’s feet, because the flaws have mostly been in terms of players being who we knew they are. We knew DeMar would struggle with the traps and isn’t a notable defender, knew that Valanciunas is slow-footed and struggles in pick and roll coverage, knew that Carroll and Patterson aren’t reliable three-point shooters on a game to game basis. The Raptors are who we knew they were, just not who we hoped they were.
At the same time as a lot of things have gone wrong for the Raptors in this series, the scary thing is plenty has gone right, too. Having 21 assists on 42 made field goals is pretty decent for Toronto based on the season, and only having 13 turnovers at the same time is good. They also shot 46% from the field, and didn’t shoot or hit many 3s, but that’s the identity of this team too, and it might not be reasonable to expect them to keep up with Cleveland in either attempts or makes. In games this season where the Raptors shot 45+% from the field, had 20+ assists and less than 15 turnovers, the team went 23-4. That was an established recipe for success for Toronto, and they got good contributions from a number of players, including Jonas Valanciunas scoring 23 points on just 13 shots and Cory Joseph scoring 22 on 14 attempts. Kyrie Irving only managed 6 for 19 from the field and despite his high assist total, wasn’t the monster playoff performer he’s known to be. It wasn’t a complete disaster of a game, and maybe that’s what makes it a complete disaster of a series.
This isn’t to say the prospect of a rebuild is better, but this summer is full of questions which I won’t go into here, partially because we all already know what they are, and partially because maybe this isn’t the best moment to ask those questions because of the frustrations of these last two games. But there’s also an argument that this is the best moment for those discussions, because if this team wasn’t built for this moment, what was the point? Why commit even more heavily to the luxury tax in those trade deadline acquisitions, and get older in the process, if you aren’t setting your sights higher than last year’s accomplishments? How do you make that sales pitch to MLSE this summer that they need to spend much, much more money to bring back the same core with no expectation of advancement in the postseason, because Cleveland is simply insurmountable for this team?
Maybe you knew in the back of your head all along that this would probably happen, that LeBron James was simply too good to defeat in the postseason, but I think it’s disingenuous not to admit that we at least hoped for a better result this time around. This is still a good team, but maybe greatness is just out of reach. We should maybe appreciate more that being good isn’t such a bad consolation prize, but in this moment, it’s hard not to have wanted more than that. If this is the end of the road for this core, it’s been a good run. I couldn’t be mad with either running it back again or changing direction next year, because there were enough good moments even to offset the heartbreak of series like this, and at the same time this feels like a clear indicator of what the ceiling looks like.
