The Toronto Raptors were already up 30 when Kyle Lowry, trying to recover to the corner to contest a Brooklyn Nets shooter, was bumped off his line by a late screen from Jarrett Allen. A moving screen was called. Allen, frustrated — perhaps because his team was losing the game in every way imaginable — turned and cursed at the ref, swinging his arm in disgust. Lowry hopped from one foot to the other, instant live wire, pleading with the referee to throw a technical at Allen for his indecorous behavior.
“He’s wild like that, man,” said Terence Davis of Lowry. “He’s always on the edge, man. That’s playoff Kyle and that’s my first time actually seeing him in person really how intense he is… It’s everything, man, and it’s a sight to see, and it’s exciting to be part of, and it’s incredible.”
Allen didn’t receive a technical as a result of Lowry’s instigation, but Lowry and his teammates continued abusing the Nets. Lowry took three charges in the first half. He blocked the buzzer-beating triple attempt out of bounds to end the half. Despite a poor third quarter, he and his team debased the undermanned Nets in the first game of Toronto’s championship defense playoff run. It was, for Toronto, encouraging.
The Toronto Raptors aren’t used to being bullies. In 2014, despite being the higher seed against the Brooklyn Nets, the Raptors were considered by many to be underdogs against the veteran Nets. Even Nick Nurse, then an assistant with the Raptors, admitted in hindsight that Toronto’s team maximized its talent in the regular season and didn’t seem to have another gear for the playoffs. That was Lowry’s first time in the playoffs with the Raptors, of course, and he and the team have grown since 2014. They’ve grown through trials, through time in the fire of the crucible. After a long time spent as underdogs to LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers, the Raptors have emerged as the bullies, the tormentors, the swaggering champions punching down on a hapless victim. Even last year, champions, the Raptors were more a blue-collar stereotype than fearsome juggernaut favourite. The defense was awe-inspiring, yes. And Kawhi Leonard wore an aura of inevitability like trophies from his fallen foes. But Leonard is gone.
Toronto’s defense — and inevitability — remain.
The Nets weren’t ready for the Raptors. They seemed lost at tip-off, ready to cede the court like that guy at pickup who gets dunked on and leaves, forgetting he had a thing. Brooklyn’s offense was disconnected, completely unready for the apparating swarm of locusts that are Toronto’s defenders in the lane. Fred VanVleet was wonderful getting into Caris LeVert’s legs, keeping his space minimal and forcing him to dribble tight into the body rather than looping in multiple directions. LeVert was limited heading to the rim. To LeVert’s credit, he adjusted, getting rid of the ball earlier, and he finished with 15 assists. But Toronto trapped him even higher in the fourth quarter, closer to the halfcourt line, and his teammates were asked to make plays instead of hit standstill jumpers after his passes. As a result, LeVert finished with two assists, two turnovers, and zero points in the decisive fourth.
On offense, Toronto probed and played intelligently, prying open the cracks of Brooklyn’s defense with a crowbar. They shot 50 percent from deep, hitting 22 triples. Toronto’s bigs, Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka, found open shots all night, finishing with 35 combined points. Ibaka especially was aggressive, hitting his jumpers and attacking the offensive glass, finishing with three of Toronto’s nine offensive rebounds. Brooklyn played drop defense quite often, but without the personnel to chase over the top of the screen, so Toronto’s guards rained fire from deep – as predicted in my series preview. VanVleet finished with 30 points and 11 assists, the first time ever that a Toronto player scored 30 with 10 or more assists in the playoffs. He shot 8-for-1o from deep, many of which were deep pull-up attempts.
There were moments in which Toronto’s guard slipped. The third quarter was woeful, especially as the Raptors stopped scoring in transition and started forcing more shots out of isolation. Brooklyn cut out the turnovers from their offense, and Toronto stopped rotating with the same ferocity. The Nets at one point cut the lead to eight from a high in the first half of 33.
“Just a little slow up the court, I think there was only two transition points that entire quarter, just wasn’t the pace and energy we were playing with most of the game,” explained Nurse after the game.
But the Raptors never kept the snarl from their mouths for long. VanVleet always seemed to match a Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot triple with one of his own. After Jarrett Allen dunked on Serge Ibaka, seeming to gain momentum for the Nets in the fourth, OG Anunoby responded. He snatched an offensive rebound from the crowd, spun in the lane, and detonated on Luwawu-Cabarrot to quiet any latent Brooklyn hopes. The Raptors had answers ready at every turn.
The Nets, despite a fun performance in the bubble culminating in a 5-3 record, do not have the talent to face the Raptors. It’s not a surprise that Toronto won by a wide margin in game one. But it’s significant; this team of defending champions, unlike past iterations of the Raptors, does not play down to inferior opponents. It is happy to punish an opponent that’s already on the ground. The playoffs are begun, and bubble games are weird, and that, too, plays to Toronto’s strengths.
The Raptors have been lauded all year as a plucky underdog. But they are not. They are an overwhelming favourite. Defending champions. A dominant team full of two-way stars. And they showed that dominance in a thrashing delivered to the Nets in game one, dispelling worries about curses early in the game, opening with a 10-2 run and leading every second of the game. The Raptors have the talent and schemes to go far in the playoffs, and as Lowry demonstrated in his frenzied attempt at earning Allen a technical despite leading by 30 points, they never stop trying to throttle their opponents. The playoffs are underway. Expect many more highs to come from the defending champs that are no longer sleepers.
