THAT’S A RAP!
Relentless Raptors close out Wizards in Game 6 with the kind of performance that could go a long way
Toronto heads to conference semifinals after crushing Wizards in Game 6,
They had never done that before. Not just won a bestof-seven; that’s happened, though it’s a recent Raptors development. Not just closed it out short of Game 7, because they did that last year. Remember the closeout game in Milwaukee last year? Raptors staffers still look harrowed when they talk about it. Like they had seen a ghost.
No, this time, the Raptors just ended it. They were down five heading into the fourth quarter after an uneven, backand-forth three quarters. Some early possessions in the fourth were … messy. The bench was on the floor against Washington Wizards star John Wall.
And the Toronto Raptors stomped on another team’s neck, without threat of elimination, without the terror of a blown 25-point lead in Milwaukee. The serious teams win this game, and put the series to bed. Well, Raptors 102, Wizards 92, and the Raptors are in the second round.
“It’s big,” said DeMar DeRozan, who has his first quiet night since Game 1, with 16 points on 6-for-18 shooting. “Especially with the dynamic of how we can do it. (Kyle Lowry) can have a big night, I can have a big night, and the nights that we don’t we got a bench that can go out there and win the game as well. So any given night, whether it’s a closeout game or a Game 1, I think we’re just capable of showing so many elements on how to win a game that we didn’t have last year.”
“That’s how our team is built,” said Lowry, who had 24 points, five rebounds and six assists in just 32 minutes and closed strong.
The Wizards jumped out to a 15-4 lead; the bench eventually clawed that back. They were down 10 late in the second, and Lowry closed the gap. And down in the fourth, even after the bench had clawed back that five-point lead with human warm blanket Fred VanVleet back from his shoulder-related exile. VanVleet is like a coach for this team, as dependable as the sunrise, and coach Dwane Casey spoke as if his favourite child has returned from a long absence. He changed the game, everyone said.
It was a one-point Raptors lead with 8:21 to go, but the Raptors didn’t stop. The bench —the quintet of VanVleet, Delon Wright, Pascal Siakam, C.J. Miles and Jakob Poeltl — was at its multifaceted whirling best, and with 6:15 to go Lowry and Jonas Valanciunas came back with a three-point lead.
And then came the hammer. VanVleet, Wright, Lowry, Siakam and Valanciunas is not a lineup the Raptors have relied on, but they were brilliant. Wright, called out by Washington’s Kelly Oubre Jr. for not producing on the road, found ways to make plays. Lowry, content to be a secondary offensive player for so much of this series, attacked and got into the lane, and by the time he hit a layup with 1:55 left the lead was 10. Lowry can still impact a game in a way no other Raptor can. Well, other than VanVleet, maybe.
“Kyle is — he’s not a guy that’s looking to get a lot of points,” said Wizards coach Scott Brooks. “Like I said earlier in the series, he’s not a volume shooter, he’s a volume winner.” Of his own team, he said, “You can’t just do it with one or two players.”
Toronto outscored the Wizards 29-14 in the fourth quarter. This franchise doesn’t do that, or at least had never done that in this five-year playoff life. Before this game, the Raptors were 5-14 in road playoff games in the Lowry and DeRozan era. They had a lead in Game 4 here and stagnated down the stretch to miss a chance. Last year in Milwaukee, the closeout game was nearly a debacle.
This time, they just did it. Washington had to rely so much on Wall and Bradley Beal, who combined to play nearly 84 combined minutes. Lowry and DeRozan, with a bench to rely on, only had to play 65.
This series had already seen Lowry and DeRozan play some of the best playoff basketball of their careers, and the bench not being effective on the road was one of the things that held Toronto back. Well, that was over, and you saw something like what these Raptors can be.
“After four quarters, it’s never going to be a perfect 48 minutes,” said Valanciunas, who had 14 points, 12 rebounds and two blocks in 31 minutes, and was part of the closing lineup that stomped the game away. “You’re gonna have ups and downs, especially in the playoffs ... and we gotta realize there’s going to be ups and downs. We’re going to have tough moments, when we’re trailing, when we’re down a lot. “The good teams know how to come back and fight back. I thought we did this round, and we just gotta keep doing it. Now we have experience — last year, this year. We know how to do it. Enough talking. Let’s do it.”
So now they wait to see who they play. The Cleveland Cavaliers, which is essentially LeBron James and a cast of extras, got drilled by Indiana in Game 6, and are about five to 10 plays from a six-game sweep at the hands of the Pacers. LeBron has become the polar opposite of the Raptors: he is a one-man band, dragging everyone around. The Raptors are a team where everyone can pick one another up. If DeRozan and Lowry and the bench can all get playoff-comfortable together … well, this team is ever-evolving and still discovering itself. They are all figuring it out.
“I mean, I think it’s kind of like a natural kind of thing, said DeRozan. “You’ll walk around at home in your drawers. That doesn’t mean you’ll feel comfortable going to your friend’s house and doing the same thing … You kind of gotta get in a comfortable zone, to get comfortable with yourself.”
The Raptors, finally, look comfortable with themselves. Let’s see what happens next.