Bruce Arthur,
Raptors hang on to knock out Bucks for shot at LeBron
Maybe you were howling it at your television screens when the 25-point lead was down to 13; maybe you were screaming it when the lead was eight, then three, then gone. There were so many times to bellow from the rooftops: SAME OLD RAPTORS.
But they couldn’t hear you. In fairness, they couldn’t hear anything, because that lead was vanishing like Pepto-Bismol poured down a drain, and it felt like every man, woman and child in Wisconsin was emptying their lungs in the Bradley Center. The Bucks had found life and the Raptors looked like the ball had been coated in school-room glue, and that 25-point lead vanished in the din. Oh, hell. Game 7, again.
And then, unexpectedly, they didn’t let it happen. The Raptors pulled out Game 6 over the Milwaukee Bucks, 9289. They will play Cleveland and LeBron James, starting Monday night.
“We just kept fighting, kept scratching, kept competing . . . but we made it harder than it needed to be,” said coach Dwane Casey. “I loved our resiliency. I love that our guys didn’t cave in. I’ve coached guys that would have caved in under that pressure — the arena, the crowd.”
Down two with three minutes left, DeMar DeRozan’s endless well of selfconfidence got them a bucket. Down two again, Patrick Patterson — the formerly indispensable Raptor who had been recently forgotten, lost in a slump — played give-and-go with Cory Joseph and dunked to tie it again. The Raptors got a stop, moved the ball, and Joseph, who was 0-for-3 for the game, nailed a three.
“You’ve got to play until that clock reads zero, zero, zero,” said Joseph. “I was just saying in the timeout — because it seemed a little bit intense, and guys were a little bit uptight on the bench — I was just telling them, relax, let’s run some plays, let’s move the ball, let’s keep doing the things that got us up that high in the first place. Just trying to calm everybody down.”
“It’s human nature to get a little bit tense when things aren’t going your way.”
Both those plays started with doubleteams on DeRozan, and ended because they passed the ball to guys who had no reason to be confident, except they had been trusted. And in the final minute, DeRozan turned the corner to avoid a double team, got past seven-footer Thon Maker, rose before Giannis Antetokounmpo could get up, and dunked with 48.7 seconds left: 87-82. Joseph added two free throws. The Raptors had to make free throws to seal it, and DeRozan finished with 32 points. It was enough to survive.
They survived partly because Milwaukee missed nine free throws in the second half. They survived partly because the incredible Antetokounmpo played all but 81 seconds of the game, and the Bucks could only stay dead even with Toronto when he was on the floor.
“When you look at this, it came down to free throws,” said Milwaukee coach Jason Kidd. “It’s not that hard. We don’t need to over-analyze this. We got to the stripe and we just couldn’t capitalize on that.”
Maybe the Raptors don’t need to over-analyze this, either — they all said the Raptors built that 25-point lead by moving the ball, and they all said the lead vanished when they stopped. But once it stopped, the key might be that they had enough trust left to move the ball when it mattered. That’s what saved them.
Before the game, Kidd was asked what you learn about players in elimination games. It applied to Toronto too, more or less.
“You learn a lot about their character,” said Kidd. “Who is going to fight; who is going to run. Who is able to handle it when things are good. This is just the start of the journey for this young group, and understanding it is not always easy to win, and can you handle it when things don’t go well?”
“This is about stars showing up. If you look around the league the stars are showing up, and this is fun to watch.”
Kyle Lowry is still a big question mark; he finished with 13 points and four assists in 44 minutes. He never really tried to take control of the game. But DeRozan did. The Raptors found out who could fight when things were going well, and when they weren’t.
So now it’s Cleveland, the kings of the east. But this time Cleveland’s defence is softer, and Toronto has more than it has ever had. Maybe the Cavaliers are vulnerable enough. Maybe the lesson of this Milwaukee series was that the Raptors have more than one way to beat teams, and are ready for this.
Or maybe the lesson is that these Raptors can’t score consistently enough to stay with a team quarterbacked by the greatest basketball force in the world.
As one NBA coach recently said, “Beating LeBron James in a sevengame series is the hardest thing on the planet.” Nobody has stopped LeBron on the road to the NBA final since 2010.
But this is probably Toronto’s best chance to take a run at the king. They have more than they ever have; they may not be the same old Raptors.
Every year LeBron leaves teams smoking on the side of the road. Time to try again.