QUIET CONFIDENCE DEFINES RAPTORS
This time round, Toronto primed for success as it heads to the NBA playoffs
DeMar DeRozan was sitting on a stage, just a few questions into a session with about 20 reporters, when a loud “psssst” came from the hallway. He ignored it.
“PSSSST,” came the sound again, louder this time. Kyle Lowry’s face could be seen in the hall. “We gotta go!” he whispered, but loud enough to be heard by all.
DeRozan leaned back, so that Lowry couldn’t make eye contact. “We gotta go!” came the call.
DeRozan brought the news conference to a halt. “I’m not going to talk until you leave,” he said to Lowry.
“Obviously, that’s not true because you’re talking right now,” Lowry responded.
It was the I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I game between warring siblings, except the brothers in question happen to both be NBA all-stars, less than 24 hours from the opening of the first-round playoff series between the Toronto Raptors and the Indiana Pacers.
That it was Lowry — who eventually gave up pestering DeRozan — who was playing team jester on Friday afternoon at the Raptors practice facility was something of a surprise. He’s not exactly the sunniest personality on the team, more like stern with occasional gusts toward surly. But Lowry had also just finished a media session of his own in which he was playful and loose.
Asked about the team’s struggles down the stretch season, Lowry cut off the question: “Yeah, we was trash,” he said.
Asked about the progression of forward Norm Powell from rookie to starter, Lowry leaned into the microphone: “He’s still a rookie,” he boomed.
Asked if the Raptors, who have been so good at getting to the foul line this season, had a counter strategy if the referees don’t co-operate, Lowry shrugged. “We gotta put the ball in the hole,” he said. “That’s the counter.” Then a slight grin.
Kyle Lowry, playful? It kind of felt like spotting a unicorn.
But then again, Lowry and DeRozan are the unquestioned leaders of this team. Lowry’s loose confidence could be read as just that: a signal to the rest of the Raptors that they have a handle on these playoffs now, and that they are ready to back up the 56 wins and the No. 2 seed in the East with the performance that has eluded them in two straight post-seasons. We got this, fellas. We belong. Before Lowry had started goofing around with him, DeRozan had talked about how the two guards had spoken to each other in the wake of the firstround sweep at the hands of the Washington Wizards about what they needed to do to make the team better. DeRozan said those conversations continued, almost daily, through the summer. He knew that Lowry was going to lose weight and come to training camp with a body better suited to the rigours of an NBA season. He knew he was going to work on his own game, too. That loss to the Wizards, he said, “it really ate away at me all summer.”
Dwane Casey, the head coach, said afterward that his two stars followed through on their offseason of work.
“You are going to go the way your leaders go,” he said. “They set the tone.”
And the way they went was up: a pile of franchise records, and a third straight Atlantic Division title that was so perfunctory that the team didn’t even bother to have a banner-raising ceremony. On Tuesday night, it was just there, in the rafters. They are acting like they have been there before because they have.
Not all of the team’s success can be traced to the play and the attitude of their two leaders. The additions of Cory Joseph, Bismack Biyombo, Luis Scola and DeMarre Carroll went a long way to re-establishing the defensive identity that departed the Raptors last season. Casey himself also deserves credit; he’s been banging on about defence for years now, even when the Raptors were objectively unable to play it, and the message eventually took hold. They allowed the third-fewest points per game in the league this season and in four games against Indiana, the Raptors held the Pacers to an average of 99.3 points on 42 per cent shooting. Indiana’s chief threat, all-star forward Paul George, averaged 16.3 points against Toronto, well off his season average of 23.1 points. Much of that is due to the defence of DeRozan himself, who says the two playoff exits were at least a learning experience.
“Sometimes, you gotta fail to understand what you have to do,” he said.
The coach, who didn’t quite buy Lowry’s “trash” assessment of last year’s playoff squad, did agree that this version is in a better place, with roles that are understood and a better commitment to defence. Last season, as the Raptors cleaned out their lockers, Casey sounded like he knew what he had to do, even if he didn’t know quite how to do it. His players were similarly out of answers.
They seem to have figured something out.
“They’re in a better mental place,” Casey said. “Their confidence is higher.”
As evidenced by Kyle Lowry, jokester.
“We really took last season to heart,” DeRozan said.
Now it’s time to see if they can avoid another summer of bitter lessons.
Sometimes, you gotta fail to understand what you have to do.