Pretender graveyard full of LeBron victims
Of all the ways of looking at LeBron James, maybe the best is that he is a lie detector. It’s something he has in common with the president he has spoken against with such brutal “U bum” eloquence: you find out the truth about a person when he is involved. If you beat a LeBron James team you have done something real and great. If he beats you, well … it becomes a lot about how you lose.
The Toronto Raptors were laid bare Thursday night. They had already blown an exceedingly winnable Game 1 against a Cleveland Cavaliers team that, had you put them under pressure, would probably have been fine with packing up and heading their separate ways.
And in Game 2, the Raptors were simply wiped off the earth. It wasn’t just LeBron, though he was the sun around which Cleveland’s misbegotten planets revolved. But where the Raptors were supposed to be there was a vacuum.
Now, going back to Cleveland down 0-2 against this flawed team, it feels like the Raptors are done. Suppose they aren’t. Suppose that 59-win, play-hard, tough-to-play team reappears. A lot of us would have to eat our words then.
But after just two games it feels like LeBron has reduced the Raptors to their most elemental selves. He has left a graveyard full of pretenders in the East: the remains of that Boston Celtics title team, the old Derrick Rose Chicago Bulls, the old Paul George Indiana Pacers, the 60-win Atlanta Hawks, and in the last two years the Toronto Raptors. It’s not that they weren’t good teams. They just weren’t great, or great enough.
Now the Raptors have to feel like they have been reduced to their elemental state. Kyle Lowry had 18 points in the first half of Game 2 and three in the second half, and at 32 he hasn’t been able to shove playoff games at both ends the way he occasionally used to be able to. He’s been merely very good. But not great.
Meanwhile, in two games DeMar DeRozan has 46 points in the series on 43 shots, and is 0-for-9 from threepoint range. He was pushed to shoot threes by the front office and the coaching staff this season, and he tried. But it’s not really him. In Game 2 he was back to being the empty-calorie scorer he used to be.
And even if he hadn’t been, DeRozan was hunted on defence, put in switches and pick-and-rolls, and so often he died on screens or just failed to move his feet. DeRozan’s evolution has been marvellous, and precisely none of it has occurred at the defensive end of the floor. The best players are never defensive sinkholes. He is.
Add Serge Ibaka all but dying on the court and coach Dwane Casey, whose architecture this season was stellar, was left grasping for answers. The culture-reset offence was efficient as a clock: 54 per cent from the field, 40 per cent on 30 three-pointers, 91 per cent from the free-throw line on the rare occasions they got there.
But the defence got strafed. The Boston Celtics don’t talk about having to play harder. Neither did Indiana. The Raptors, after Game 2, did.
Lowry, DeRozan and Casey are the core of this Raptors era, the best in franchise history. They have all built themselves up from far lesser places, and what they have accomplished should be admired.
And if this thing ends up in a sweep you have to start thinking about which ones should and will survive. Lowry is getting older. DeRozan’s D has stayed stuck in the sand. The whole reset was because they weren’t good enough, and they still aren’t. Casey has done so much, but he’s the easiest card to play if something dramatic has to change.
Look, there aren’t many true superstars in this league, and there is only one LeBron. But are there only 15 NBA players better than Lowry and DeRozan? Or are there 20? These Raptors have been about the best squad you could create without any really great play- ers, and in these two games, when the meat of the games arrived, you could see the difference.
In Game 1, the Raptors gagged. In Game 2, when it mattered, they had shockingly little fight.
What was it Paul Pierce, whose nickname was The Truth, said before that 2015 sweep against Washington? “We haven’t done particularly well against Toronto, but I don’t feel they have the ‘It’ that makes you worried.” What’s really changed, at the core? The Raptors still have time to prove something has. But not much.
“The way we played tonight is not us,” said Casey after Game 2. “Yeah, we had a hangover from the other night, but again this is the NBA (conference) semifinals, and we can’t come out in the third quarter and give up a 18-5 run. No matter what happens, no matter what they’re doing offensively, we’ve gotta keep fighting, keep our heads up, stay together. All the positive things we’ve gotta have.
“Nobody is gonna feel sorry for us. I’m sure you guys already have it written. Nobody’s gonna feel sorry for us, so the only thing you can do is come out and pray with pride and prove the fact that we’re a better team than we showed tonight.”
They are, you know. It just didn’t matter.