THESE RAPTORS CHANGING TEAM’S PLAYOFF IDENTITY
Deep and talented group helping fans forget failures of previous post-seasons
In the departures area at Orlando International Airport on Monday morning, the man who calls himself the Superfan was holding court.
Nav Bhatia, the car dealer from the Toronto suburbs who sits courtside for every Raptors home game, and a lot of them on the road, was resplendent in a gold and black jacket, gold sneakers, and a matching T-shirt. He was shaking hands, he was posing for photos, he was smiling and laughing with the people who wanted to bask in the reflection of a little Raptors glory.
As a sampling of the mood in Raptorland, this is something close to unprecedented, at least during playoff season. For the last several years, there has been optimism when the calendar gets into late April, but it has always been fleeting. When the Nav Bhatias of the world spend big money to travel to places like Indianapolis, Miami and, shudder, Cleveland, to see the Raptors on the road in the post-season, they generally fly home with feelings of angst and regret.
But, the Toronto Raptors, actually taking care of business against a team they are supposed to beat? After the obligatory Game 1 misstep, three straight wins, two of them dominant and two of the them on the road, to build the first 3-1 series lead in the franchise’s 24 seasons?
These are new and unusual times.
Which isn’t to say that they should actually be all that surprising. This was the idea, after all, one that really began after the 2017 playoffs, when the Raptors were so rudely shoved aside by LeBron James and the Cavaliers. A successful regular-season team was retooled on the fly, using mostly the same pieces, but playing a brand of basketball that was more in tune with the modern NBA game: an emphasis on ball movement, and three-point shooting, and an aggressively switching, versatile defence.
It wasn’t enough to get by LeBron again, you may recall. And then big changes really happened.
Coach Dwane Casey was replaced with Nick Nurse, one of his lead assistants, and Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green were brought in at the expense of DeMar DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl. The front office remained aggressive, getting Marc Gasol for three more regular rotation guys and leaving Nurse with a roster that was dramatically unlike previous Raptors versions, even the really good ones.
It’s a team that has all kinds of veteran defensive presence, that can get scoring from all five positions, that can go big or go small or however Nurse and his staff want to play from game to game.
Again, this was the plan. What’s most unusual, from the perspective of the Raptors, is that the plan has survived the test of the post-season. With the extremely large caveat that it’s been just four games, what’s been most striking is that this combination of players has responded well to adversity, has raised its game when challenged, has pushed back when pushed.
As much as this roster as presently constituted allows for different tactics and strategy than the one of the Casey-DeRozanKyle Lowry era, it’s also different in intangible ways, just because so many of its key players weren’t in Toronto for previous playoff swoons. When guys like Green, Gasol and Leonard have been asked over the past couple of weeks about Toronto’s history of playoff struggles, they have been variously bemused, confused and annoyed. As in, why would any of that bother them? It wasn’t Gasol who couldn’t convert multiple layup attempts in Game 1 against Cleveland last year, and it wasn’t Leonard who was benched in Game 3 of that same series, as the Raptors mounted a comeback that LeBron ultimately crushed (again).
It’s a new team, and while Nurse has been stressing recently that its identity should be that of a team that plays great defence, its real identity might be something else entirely: Not the Same Old Raptors.
Nurse spoke a little about that on Monday, when he was asked about the team’s struggles in closing out playoff games.
“What do you mean, ‘this’ team,” he asked? He noted that the failures of the past didn’t apply to this particular team, which has never had a closeout opportunity before.
“Let’s see if they can start their own history tomorrow,” he said. “And I’m not trying to be rude in any way, I just want this team to form its identity. What’s happened in the past has no bearing or relevance to what’s happening now, to me. I like to steal Joe Maddon’s line and say we don’t vibrate on those frequencies of the past.”
That’s not exactly what the Chicago Cubs manager once said. He explained that he “didn’t vibrate on that frequency” when asked about the century-old Cubs curse. But the point stands.
Yes, the Raptors have struggled mightily to win a playoff series easily throughout their history. But also, yes, this is a very different Raptors team. There’s every reason to believe they will play one more solid game and put away an overmatched Orlando Magic team in Game 5.
But their fans can be forgiven for needing to see it happen to believe it.