GOING OUT WITH A THUD
Raptors season ends badly
Last year against the Brooklyn Nets, the Toronto Raptors punched back every time they looked doomed. They got down 10 points in the final six minutes of Game 7, and still fought back so that they had the ball, down one, with a chance to win on the final possession of the game. They did not have quite enough talent to win a seven-game series against a more experienced team, but they were thoroughly commendable.
Perhaps coach Dwane Casey thought that team still existed, somewhere. The seven guys who played the most minutes during the 2014 playoffs were all back. Lou Williams and James Johnson, the only significant additions to this year’s on-court product, have been positives. Maybe there was a reservoir, deep within them, that contained some of that attitude, some of that hard, focused play.
“We know our backs are against the wall,” Casey said before Sunday’s Game 4 against the Washington Wizards. “I’ll be shocked if our guys don’t come out and give it their all and play their guts out.”
By the time the midway point of the first quarter rolled round on Sunday, you could not blame Raptors fans if they were accusing the players of being without guts for the opposite reason that the coach suggested. It is not that the Raptors did not try — not exactly — but there was a total abdication of responsibility as their appearance in the 2015 playoffs ended in an embarrassing first-round sweep. The Wizards took Game 4 Sunday 125-94.
This was a bad defensive team virtually all year long, and all of their worst qualities were on display on Sunday.
They helped too much, and did not have the speed or intuitiveness to recover. They failed to communicate in transition, leaving any given Washington player totally unaccounted for. They lost various Wizards off of the ball, getting caught ball watching. They got beat on the perimeter so often that the Wizards enjoyed a parade to the free-throw line. If this was the Raptors fighting for their lives, they must not have valued their final breaths very much.
Just like in the first two games, Kyle Lowry got in early foul trouble. Once again, he did not think he was at fault. He picked up his second foul fewer than six minutes into the game, a blocking call on John Wall in transition that looked
My job is to try and get them prepared for this game today. Our whole thing today is not to worry about the future.
to be plainly wrong. Frustrated later, Lowry threw a hard chest pass at a referee after a timeout call, earning a technical foul.
Understandably, Lowry stayed in the game — it was a do-or-die game. But he picked up another foul on another irresponsible gamble, biting on a Bradley Beal pump fake. Lowry swung his arm in frustration, knowing that his mistake had put his team in a massive hole. Indeed, the Raptors were outscored by 10 points over the 10 minutes that followed before Lowry checked back into the game. By then, the Raptors were doomed.
As always, the Raptors’ efforts to get back into this game came via solo missions. Even when they made some progress, it was mostly via DeMar DeRozan, Williams and Lowry trying to make something, anything, happen on their own.
“Being together on both ends of the floor is the most important thing, especially when you fight. ... You can’t do it by yourself,” Casey said. “You’ve got to do it collectively.” Nonetheless, they tried, and they got what they deserved. And now the questions come. Before the series started, general manager Masai Ujiri said the playoffs would have a huge impact on what he decided to do with the core of this team. Based on these four games, it is hard to think of a regular contributor who has made himself indispensable.
“My job is to try and get them prepared for this game today,” Casey said. “Our whole thing today is not to worry about the future.”
The future is here. It is going to be turbulent.