FINAL FANTASY
Toronto FC’s quest to add the Champions League crown, never before won by an MLS club, comes down to two games against Mexico’s Chivas starting tonight at BMO Field. Game on.
Not only were the Raptors doing something they’d never done before – leading a firstround series 1-0 instead of explaining their underperformance in another squandered Game 1 — Sunday brought news that LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers are anything but invincible. Cleveland, the betting favourite to represent the East in the NBA final despite the fact they came into the playoffs as the fourth seed, lost the first game of their series with the Pacers despite a triple-double from basketball’s self-proclaimed king. It was the first round-one loss by a LeBron-led team since 2012. And while things can change, and nobody’s silly enough to count the Cavaliers out after one loss, maybe it made the prospect of a possible meeting with Cleveland in the second round slightly less futile.
Even considering the apocalyptic April weather, the outlook was awfully sunny in Raptorland. “I was out tanning yesterday. I was out there tanning,” Lowry joked at one point. “I got a little darker. Y’all can’t tell, but I look darker.”
Seeing Lowry under the weather in a playoff series against the Wizards could easily bring back ugly memories. Three years ago, when Washington swept the Raptors in a first-round walkover, Lowry was suffering from the sniffles while he was being rendered a pylon by John Wall’s incessant straight-line drives into the paint. Thankfully for Raptor fans, a lot has changed since then. Lowry still isn’t quick enough to keep up with Wall; nobody in the league probably is. But Lowry, who turned 32 last month, now has a superior cast of teammates surrounding him, which means he’s being asked to carry less of the load than he was in 2015.
Still, Wall, Washington’s allstar point guard, roamed awfully freely in Game 1 – a problem that, if not contained, could cost the Raptors games. And Lowry was asked if Wall has lost a step since the knee injury that kept him out of 41 games during the regular season.
“Did you watch (Game 1)?” Lowry said, his mouth agape. “Yeah, yeah, no, (Wall is) still pretty fast. I used to be that fast…when I was, like, 10.”
Still, Lowry was hardly a liability in Game 1. He was a commanding presence in the fourth quarter, when he dished out four assists while making some turning-point plays. And head coach Dwane Casey said the late-game jump in his point guard’s step was an embodiment of the benefits of reducing Lowry’s regular-season playing time by about five minutes a game when compared to his 2016-17 workload.
“I think you are seeing (the upside of less regular-season playing time) now, just with his intensity,” Casey said. “We planned to see it now (thanks to the minutes management), and I think we are seeing it.”
That’s not to say the Raptors wouldn’t appreciate seeing Fred VanVleet back in the lineup. The backup point guard is a big reason why the Raptors managed to reduce Lowry’s regularseason minutes while simultaneously winning a franchisebest 59 games. As Toronto’s most reliable three-point threat – this in a season in which the squad has committed to hoisting volume threes — VanVleet’s return is a necessity. So it was good news that VanVleet, nursing a shoulder injury suffered in the regular-season capper in Miami, was said by Casey to have made it through “most” of practice on Monday. He’s listed as day-to-day. “We’ll see how he feels (Tuesday),” Casey said.
It’s clear the coach, bracing from a strong response from the visitors in Game 2, can’t get VanVleet back soon enough.
“They’re going to come out breathing fire,” Casey said of the Wizards. “And we’ve got to do the same.”
Delon Wright, another of Game 1’s heroes thanks to an uber-efficient 18 points on 10 shots in 25 minutes off the bench, would have been excused for wanting to build a fire on Sunday night. As it was, when the power went out in his downtown residence he retreated to RealSports Bar and Grill, the watering hole next to the Air Canada Centre, where he watched the NBA playoffs and charged his phone. The hydro hadn’t returned when he awoke Monday morning. With the heat out, Wright said he slept in a sweater and sweatpants. Apparently no worse for wear, at least Wright’s voice didn’t sound as gravelly as Lowry’s on Monday. “Great weather we’ve got out here, baby,” Lowry said, shaking his head. “It’s great weather.”