All year long, the Toronto Raptors have insisted that they are a different team. They play different, they trust different, and based on Wednesday’s practice, they talk different, too.
So, while there are certain situations that may look the same to those outside of the team — partially because it’s easy to get lazy and maintain the same narrative — perhaps we need to do a better job of taking things at face value with this team.
DeMar DeRozan described feeling eager to rid themselves of the feeling they threw a game away which is in stark contrast to being overwhelmed in the last two years by the crushing Game 1 defeats they suffered at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers. All the talk centered around how it was their mistakes, their own undoing that hurt them. Not the resounding, they have LeBron so there’s nothing we can do, vibe from a year ago.
After Game 1 against the Cavs, there was still more familiar criticism came. Same old Raptors, same old Kyle Lowry… so on and so forth. The four-time all-star finished with 18 points, 10 assists, shot 50 per cent from the field and 3-of-6 from the three-point line. He was impacting the game at such a high level that LeBron James took on the burden of guarding him when the game mattered most.
Yes, that’s when Lowry struggled to create offence for himself, the Raptors found themselves in a bit of a funk as a result, and proceeded to miss their final 11 shots. But did James even care to take on the responsibility of Lowry in the past? No.
In 2016, it wasn’t until the second half of Game 4 when James took on the challenge of defending DeRozan. That’s a long time over the course of a series to earn respect. In 2017, the series was essentially over once Lowry got injured midway through Game 2.
The parameters are the same, but the context is different. That matters.
This Raptors team has undeniably raised the stakes, and while the Golden State Warriors are the only ones to have earned the right to demand nothing less than the James who operates at full capacity and even takes on the risk of going into overdrive, Toronto is working its way there.
LeBron didn’t shoot in Game 1 vs the Pacers til 1:23 left in the 1Q. He took 5 shots in his first 8.5 minutes tonight. I’m gonna deduce he respects the Raps. That’s already a win over last year for Toronto.
— Tas Melas (@TasMelas) May 2, 2018
This is Year 1 of a new process. There are plenty of lessons learned from the process before it, but this is the first year of this method. This is a team that had some hard lessons to learn from their first two games in Washington, and they remained calm because they knew they had the pieces to implement the changes those lessons demanded. As some on the outside panicked with a 2-2 series on hand, they remained calm. They won Game 5, and that was followed by a professional Game 6 win. Yes, the return of Fred VanVleet helped as well.
Delon Wright, VanVleet, OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam and Jakob Poeltl are all experiencing roles of consequence for the first time in the post-season. So, when Wright has to go through the struggle of being a reluctant shooter to be brave enough to shoot a 30-footer before anyone can blink, it’s worth it. As Poeltl struggles through foul trouble and finishing at the rim, he will eventually emerge as a better player for it. Needless to say, the sooner he does it, the better.
Siakam will be learning all the time with his hands full between guarding James and being a playmaker on the other end. The travel he had on a 2-on-1 in the second quarter was cringe worthy, but it will be shocking to see him make the same mistake again. Anunoby didn’t receive fourth quarter minutes in the playoffs before Game 1, and so he will learn to look for opportunities to cut and create passing angles for teammates just as effectively late in games as he does to start them. Even VanVleet will take something away from his crunch time misses.
Now, can it be frustrating that Toronto seems to learn slower than others. Absolutely. But, perhaps, this is a live illustration of the difference between natural talent and hard work. The Raptors seem to always do it the hard way. The lessons come first, and then they look to make progress. They are the ones who have to steadily work their way up from the first world to the eighth in Super Mario, while some are able to find the secret tunnels and skip a few.
Failure is the stepping stone to success, but talents like Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Donovan Mitchell help speed up that process. DeRozan is one of the better players in the league now, but does the time he’s taken to get there make it any less worthwhile?
The point is, Toronto is here now. The lessons of the past shouldn’t be a reason to keep thinking they can’t get somewhere, but rather an indication that — no matter how slowly — they usually find a way. A team hindered by its past would have seemed distraught and crestfallen by a defeat that, to the outside world, cost them more than one game.
They recognize it hasn’t because they’re not just trying to win a game, they believe they can win the series. The Raptors were the betting favorite coming into the Eastern Conference Semifinals for a reason. They could win the series, they could lose it. Either way, it will be on their terms. That’s something they haven’t been good enough to be before.
