Moral victories that could lead to real ones
It is not easy to pull off a successful two-game losing streak, but the Toronto Raptors might just have managed the feat.
Toronto’s 127-121 loss to the Golden State Warriors on the fourth annual Drake Night on Wednesday confirmed some expected things:
• The Warriors are absurdly good. • Drake is kind of insufferable. But it also confirmed something that wasn’t quite so evident going in. Coming as it did on the heels of a four-point loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena, the moral victory against the Warriors that no one on Toronto really wanted was another piece of evidence that last year’s giant leap forward for the Raptors wasn’t a one-off fluke. They can trade blows with the best teams in the NBA. And the gap is closing.
The key question for the Raptors after last season’s run to the Eastern Conference Finals was whether this team, built around this core, was truly good enough to make a run at a title.
Despite being the best-ever playoffs for this franchise, the three series against Indiana, Miami and Cleveland did not make a convincing case that these Raptors had a lot of room to grow.
They barely survived the Pacers in seven games, barely survived the Heat in seven, and all the while Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan struggled to put together two good games in a row. Then, when they matched up against an elite team like Cleveland, the Cavaliers beat them with a sack of doorknobs.
Before this season tipped off, even though Toronto had finally secured one of its superstars in signing DeRozan to his monster contract, there was already the impression that the league didn’t take them too seriously.
Boston and Atlanta, with their additions of Al Horford and Dwight Howard respectively, were getting the buzz as the East teams most likely to give Cleveland a run, and the Vegas betting lines assumed the Raptors would take a step back from their franchise-record 56 wins.
Both those things could still happen, but the Raptors have the look of a team that will be a tougher out next spring.
Consider the visit to Quicken Loans Arena on Tuesday. Last season, the Raptors were drilled every game in Cleveland, and it got much worse in the playoffs.
Toronto averaged only 90 points per game in their six-game loss to the Cavs, shooting only 43 per cent from the field and an abysmal 29 per cent from threepoint range. For the games at the Q, Toronto never scored more than 89 points, never gave up less than 108, and lost by an average of 29 points.
But on Tuesday, at last, the Raptors put up a fight. They shot 48 per cent from the field and 45 per cent from three-point range, taking a lead late in the fourth quarter that they ultimately blew because the Raptors missed some shots and the Cavaliers did not. It happens. Coach Dwane Casey said simply you can’t have lulls against great teams, and he was right. The Raptors also shot poorly from the free-throw line (67 per cent) and had a rare off night from DeRozan this season (37 per cent shooting) and yet they came within a shot or two of pulling out the win.
Casey said before Wednesday’s game that any kind of letdown against a team like the Cavs would get you beat, and it was unintentionally prophetic.
Despite Drake’s prediction of a Toronto victory, which came after he mentioned how close he was with the various Warriors — Steph Curry and Kevin Durant are “like family” — and how he and Toronto president Masai Ujiri are always talking about new ways of elevating the Raptors, which apparently comes down to T-shirt giveaways, Toronto went out and played almost a perfect first quarter against a rested Golden State team.
The Raptors moved the ball well, pounded it with Jonas Valanciunas inside, and DeRozan had a chance to give Toronto a 40-31 lead late in the first frame. But he missed, and Durant hit a three-ball in Norm Powell’s face as the buzzer sounded, and that was mostly the end of the good news for the Raptors on the night.
Toronto is usually able to take advantage of a deep bench to take runs in the second quarter behind Kyle Lowry and various backups, but when the other team’s second unit is led by Durant, good night.
The Warriors rolled to a 32-15 edge in the second quarter and the Raptors suddenly looked like a team that was playing the second game of a back-to-back against the reigning NBA finalists and last two teams to win the title.
All the cheerleading in the world from Drake’s courtside seats couldn’t save them.
Despite the losses, the Raptors don’t look likely to regress anytime soon.
DeRozan again showed why his old-school game can be effective, getting to the free-throw line 17 times — and making all of them — on the way to 34 points.
DeMarre Carroll is starting to look like the player the Raptors thought they got from Atlanta, Lowry is Lowry and even rookie Pascal Siakam has shown flashes of being the kind of player the Raptors lost when Bismack Biyombo left in the off-season.
Moral victories count for nothing. But for the Raptors, these ones portend more of the real kind.