Best Raptors team ever scrapped, clawed to within sight of NBA Finals

LeBron James scored 33 points, Kevin Love had 20 points and 12 rebounds, and the Cleveland Cavaliers advanced to the NBA Finals by beating the Toronto Raptors 113-87.

TORONTO – Just before the ball went up, when it was still uncertain about what would happen when it came down, Toronto Raptors president and general manager Masai Ujiri got on stage in front of the faithful in Jurassic Park for the first time in this epoch of a post-season.

The crowd was buzzing, there was energy. But unlike the past two years that Ujiri has visited with the Raptors hardcore fans, he didn’t grab the mic. He didn’t curse Brooklyn or call out Paul Pierce.

He faked like he was going to address the crowd, but didn’t. He just waved and smiled.

“I just wanted to take pictures,” he said, displaying his phone like a proud papa.

He didn’t have to say anything. He didn’t curse. What was there to be upset about? Who was there to be angry at? This is a moment in time worth preserving.

In a record-setting season of firsts the Raptors didn’t make their first NBA Finals, as their 113-87 loss in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals would indicate.

But no one in the 20,800 at the ACC held it against anyone. When Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan subbed out with three minutes to play – the white flag – the crowd roared, as loud as any time in the night: “Let’s Go Raptors!”

It’s how a building full of satisfied customers say, “Thank you.”

There was a lot to give thanks for, and the gesture caught the eyes and ears of LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers star who has seen almost everything in his 13 seasons, but not something exactly like this.

“It’s an unbelievable atmosphere,” said James said of the scene inside and outside the ACC. “These fans, they mean a lot to their team, and I think the team gave everything they could throughout the season. To go to a place they’ve never been before, to get to the Eastern Conference Finals and to win two games on their home floor as well, in front of their fans … it just showed their appreciation.”

The game never really seemed to tilt in the Raptors’ favour. If there was one statistical shortcoming it’s that the Raptors shot just 29 per cent from deep in the series. In Game 6 Lowry was 6-of-12 but the rest of the team just 2-of-13. They didn’t land enough punches to score a knockout.

The Raptors fell behind quickly – 15-8 – as they missed their share of early, open looks – an emerging theme, it turned out. The conspiracy theorists in the crowd had plenty of fodder early as Bismack Biyombo – playing his customarily strong game at home – was called for a flagrant foul after elbowing Kevin Love to the head while squaring around on a putback. It cost the Raptors the basket and – most significantly – meant that Biyombo would serve a suspension in Game 7 for cumulative fragrant points, not that it ever got that far.

The next dash of excitement came when Jonas Valanciunas joined the fray, instantly making his presence felt in his second game back after his ankle injury. He knocked down a couple of shots and snared five rebounds in his first few minutes. His fifth board turned the temperature up even higher as Richard Jefferson got in Valanciunas’ face after what he thought was a malicious elbow. Valancuinas was absolved, though technical fouls were handed out.

Through it all the Raptors tried desperately to keep in contact but the Cavaliers pulled together a 9-3 run in the final 71 seconds of the half and just like that the Cavaliers were up 55-41.

“We had lapses in the second quarter, they took advantage of it,” DeRozan. “They continued to pull away from us the rest of the game and it was tough for us to get back in the game.”

Which pretty much sums things up.

The Cavs pushed their lead to 21 late in the third quarter before Lowry caught fire, scoring 18 of his game-high 35 trying to drag the Raptors back into it. With some help from DeRozan (20 points on 18 shots) they got the Cavs lead to 10 early in the fourth, but it was brief. The Cavaliers mounted one more run and put Toronto away for good as their ‘Big Three’ of James, Love and Kyrie Irving combined for 83 points, meanwhile no Raptors other than Lowry and DeRozan cracked double figures.

Leaning against a wall outside the Raptors dressing room, Lowry struggled to put what had just happened into words.

“It’s hard right now, to think about that,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

How did the season look from here?

One day the Raptors might make it to the NBA Finals, and once there win a championship. It might be sooner, it might be later, but until that moment, this moment will go down as the greatest season in franchise history, good enough that surpassing it won’t be easy.

Rising from the dregs of last year’s humiliation at the hands of the Washington Wizards, it was largely unexpected and wholly deserved.

Ownership invested. Management did a good job adding peripheral pieces that helped elevate the lead players. Dwane Casey and his coaching staff did a wonderful job deploying them almost ideally, maneuvering around various injuries along the way. The players themselves remained committed to something bigger than themselves and molded themselves into a team with a true identity: A group of tough-minded, selfless role players around all-stars Lowry and DeRozan.

“It’s hard work man,” said DeRozan. “You put in everything, you sacrifice so much for moments like this. When they get taken away from you, it’s hurtful. You worked so hard to climb your way up, to get knocked back down you understand you’ve got to start over again … But that’s a challenge we all accept, and we’re looking forward to it. But as of right now, it sucks.”

It’s a welcome kind of pain though, better than the numbing sameness of so many lost seasons past.

They faltered at times in their post-season run, but they never wilted. They shook off some early nerves against Indiana, fought through some adversity against Miami and defended their second seed admirably against a Cavaliers team that was eviscerating all in their path until the Raptors beat them twice at Air Canada Centre.

“They’re a scrappy team,” said Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue. “They just play hard every night.”

The playoffs took on a life of their own, a season unto itself. Players routinely didn’t know what day it was. It was either ‘game day’ or ‘off day’. The calendar didn’t matter. Forcing a Game 7 would have made the Raptors the first team in NBA history to start the playoffs with three straight seven-game series going to the limit.

As it was, the Raptors played 20 playoff games in 42 days and their last 15 in 29 days. It was like an opera in 15 acts, played out over weeks on behalf of a never-more rabid fanbase that lived and died with every quarter of every game, it seemed like.

Time stopped.

“I’m just living, every day, every hour, every minute,” said Lowry before Game 6. “I’ve played bad, I’ve played good, I’ve played bad and played good. I’m just living for the day and enjoying it. That’s it.”

But even as they were blissing in their intense, pleasing blur of suspended time they knew they were experiencing something important. As athletes they were going to places they’d never been.

“We’re still a relatively young team to talk about competing for a championship, but they put themselves in that position by hard work and fighting through things this season,” said Casey. “We still have a ways to go, and I’ve said this the whole time, guys that have been here have heard me say it, that next step is probably the biggest step we have to take as an organization and as individuals, myself included, the coaching staff, each player. We just talked in there a while ago about what each guy has to do, what they have to bring back to the table for us to take the next step, that next step, and it’s not going to be easy.”

That’s the future. But now? In the big picture, the panoramic view? The Raptors scrapped and clawed and fought to get within sight of the summit, the NBA Finals shimmering off in the distance. They fell short but they could see it, almost touch it; closer than any Raptors team has ever gotten before. The crowd at the ACC knew what they were doing when they broke into their “Lets Go Raptors” chant. Ujiri was smart to capture the moment on his phone.

In this special season there was triumph in the journey.

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