DeRozan eyes noise-cancelling rebound
Raptor knows there’s only one way to silence critics after Game 2 nightmare
The criticism stings like a hive of angry bees, and DeMar DeRozan can’t get away from it no matter how hard he tries.
It’s in his social network world. It’s omnipresent in the local media. Friends and family tell him about things he might not have seen or heard and, to use a word he’s repeated constantly since late Wednesday night, it “sucks.”
But all the Toronto Raptors guard can do now is sit and stew and wait for the chance to redeem himself, as hard as that is.
“That’s the crappiest part about it,” DeRozan said Thursday afternoon. “Wish you played tonight.
“You can’t turn on the TV or look on nothing socially without seeing all the criticism, or questioning this or whatever somebody may think. At the end of the day, we’re all human. Everybody sees things and may get text messages, whatever comes with it — it’s part of the game. But like I said, it’s all a matter of how we respond to it, the good and the bad.” Coach Dwane Casey called it “noise,” the kind of chatter that pops up when a team loses two games as badly as the Raptors lost the first two in this best-of-seven series in Cleveland. It’s not new:
Check a year ago, when Toronto was down 2-0 to Cleveland and the series was over.
Check a week ago, when Toronto trailed Milwaukee 2-1 and was never going to win a game again.
Check last year when they “trailed Indiana 2-2” before winning that series.
You play bad, there’s noise. But that’s always good for the “world’s against us” mentality that seems to suit this group of Raptors so well.
“I told them this morning: It’s about the 15 men in this room,” Casey said. “Don’t listen to the noise. The noise is going to be there, good and bad. When you win everybody is blowing smoke, and when it’s bad everybody is blowing smoke. You’ve got to make sure that you understand what the moment is, what we need to do defensively and offensively, and it’s concerning only about the 15 people in the room.”
But no one feels it as much as DeRozan, especially after his horrible 2for-11 shooting night in Game 2 — when he didn’t have a basket for the first three quarters, and was frustrated by a Cavs defence he and his teammates have yet to fully solve.
He knows that the Raptors can’t win with him having those kinds of nights, especially when the Cavaliers are playing at the level they were in the first two games. Even if DeRozan explodes, it might not be enough if the Cavs make tightly contested three-pointers and turn every Raptors mistake into a basket.
But if Cleveland doesn’t, the Raptors need not only maximum production from DeRozan but a healthy dose of help from his teammates.
There are adjustments, subtle and otherwise, that they can make and Casey isn’t about to give them away before Friday’s Game 3, but at the core it’s taking, and making, shots.
“Just putting shooters in the right places to maximize their ability of three-point shooting, or just guys being able to catch and shoot,” DeRozan said. “(Cleveland is) recovering well and sometimes we try to take that extra move, that extra drive, to try to create something and we lose the momentum.
“If somebody got a shot, take it. Don’t hesitate and try to do something extra, because they do a good job of recovering.”
The undeniable fact, though, is that this is DeRozan’s team, and Kyle Lowry’s, and they are going to bear the brunt when things go south. Fans may call for Casey’s head, because fans have a tendency to react too quickly and lose sight of the longer term, but the NBA is a players’ league and the players have to play.
DeRozan knows it. He’s not a fool, and 2-for-11 kills him more than anyone on a chat show or with access to a publication could.
The chance to get back out there is the most important thing in getting him from Game 2 to Game 3.
“I just take it all, whether it’s something small or whether it’s something big. I always take it on the chin like a man and let our game speak for ourselves, when we go out there on the court,” he said. “That’s just how we’ve been with everything: Always take the good with the bad, the bad with the good. Just can’t wait to get out there to redeem yourself.”