KINGDOM OF DOOM
LeBron James seems to destroy everything in his path. Now it’s our turn.
There is no shame in losing to LeBron James. Just look at a selected list of who has done it: Oklahoma City with Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka AND James Harden; San Antonio in the dying days of the great Tim Duncan, and the early ones of Kawhi Leonard; Golden State in the year they won 73 games, more than any team in history. Jeez, just being one of those teams — two of which won other titles, and the other of which featured up to three future MVPs — would be a great, proud thing.
This is the kind of thing you need to consider when you lament the fact that the Toronto Raptors are down 2-0 to LeBron and the Cavaliers again, and it looks hopeless, again. The Raptors have played five playoff games in Cleveland over the last two years, and lost them by an average of 24.1 points. It is ritualized slaughter, complete with executioners who laugh and dance and celebrate as they swing the axe. LeBron is casually spinning the ball before he shoots, or dunking an alley-oop with his left hand, or pretending to drink a beer, for simple reasons. He can.
“Right now (Michael Jordan in 1996 against Seattle is) a good comparison,” said Raptors coach Dwane Casey. “Right now LeBron is probably more in his prime or more athletic in speed than Michael had at that time. Michael was more of a stationary, post-up, one- or two-dribble type, same type. He would pick you apart with the pass. Didn’t shoot the three like LeBron is doing now. He didn’t get you in transition the way James is doing now.”
“(The) margin for error is very small because he makes you pay with his passing, now he’s shooting the three. We’ve got to make sure our attention to detail is there. It’s not like guys are not giving a crap or anything like that. It’s the things they do to you, you can’t make mistakes. They do some different things especially with him at the three, four, handling the basketball that’s different. Those things, you can’t make mistakes on them.”
They tried, but . . . look, if you can imagine Toronto winning four of five to take the series, with Kyle Lowry’s ankle rendering him questionable for Game 3, then you have a greater sense of optimism than any Toronto sports fan has a right to have.
That being said, losing to LeBron in the East is what teams do. Every team, in one way or another. Yes, the Raptors are back home, where last season they notched two of the four losses Cleveland has suffered in the last three years of Eastern Conference playoffs, with LeBron. Four losses in the East in three years, and Toronto got two of them. That’s what happens when you face one of the two or three or four or five greatest players who has ever lived, though your personal mileage may vary. Winning those two games counts as an accomplishment, really. It is.
So now what? In some ways, what has already happened in this series means it’s less the destination than the journey. The Cavaliers have done the Raptors the respect of really trying to beat them. In six games, LeBron is averaging 34.2 points, 9.2 rebounds, 7.3 assists, 2.7 steals, 1.8 blocks, and the best fieldgoal percentage (.566) and threepoint percentage (.484) of his playoff career. You’d spin the ball, too.
He is the glue that makes the back end of Cleveland’s corralling doubleteam defence suddenly formidable. Back in October people were saying Cleveland doesn’t care about the regular season. They have one goal, and it’s to beat Golden State again. LeBron has built himself up to this playoff peak, and is a destroyer of worlds.
Ordinarily, what would be riding on the next two games for the Raptors would be relatively simple: their season, their future, their sense of what has been accomplished by a team that is one of the last eight teams standing, and that if not for Lowry’s wrist injury would probably be fighting Boston tooth and nail for the right to face Cleveland one round later. Now Lowry’s ankle injury muddies the waters, and renders the judgments a little more complicated, except for this: How do you fight? How do you compete? Do you show yourself to be a team that, with one more borderline great player, could get over the top? Maybe?
“Yeah, how the two games unfolded,” said DeMar DeRozan, who is averaging 12 points on .333 shooting in the first two games. “It always sucks, just going down that way. It sucks and it’s even more frustrating. At least give ourselves a chance to be in the game. If we win we win, if we lose we lose and we understand what we gotta do if it’s a close game, going down the stretch. But losing that way, it’s definitely deflating.”
If you’re keeping score, this series has already passed through the stages of denial, anger, and has arrived at bargaining. Maybe Games 3 and 4 can push it backwards, but the only other Eastern team to beat Cleveland in the playoffs in the last three years was Chicago, 2014. There are now two Bulls players left from that team. LeBron James is a destroyer of worlds, in ways big and small. It’s Toronto’s turn.