TORONTO — Paul George was having an incredible night. He was on the way to having the kind of basketball game that you can build Hall of Fame induction presentations around.
In Game 5 of the Toronto Raptors’ first-round series against the Indiana Pacers, George was poised to crush the hopes of the fans at the Air Canada Centre and cast into doubt what the essence of the Raptors were about.
He saw it coming.
"This is why you prepare," said George before the game, with some foreshadowing, it turns out. "To play your best, right here."
Right here wasn’t a place; it was a moment. For the Pacers it was the chance to push the Raptors to the brink of elimination with the series headed back to Indianapolis for Game 6 on Friday. It was a chance to become just the first seventh seed to win an NBA playoff series in 12 years and the second in nearly 20.
And through three quarters, George was going all Michael Jordan, as his 37 points had vaulted the Pacers to 90-77 lead.
At that moment the Raptors’ collective, never-ending nightmare seemed poised to usher in a new and more twisted chapter as it very much seemed that the franchise-record 56-win season and all the high points that came along with it were about to be flushed away. The Pacers were going to win, go up 3-2 in the series and eliminate the Raptors in Indianapolis. Or worse put the knife in during Game 7 back at the ACC.
The Raptors and their fans would never be free.
But Norman Powell is new here. He knows not a franchise’s pain. So when he found himself isolated on George on the wing midway through the fourth quarter, with an improbable Raptors comeback brewing, he attacked. He went right at George, who was bobbling a questionable pass from Monta Ellis, stripped the ball and took it the length of the court for a dunk that tied the game 92-92 with 6:31 to play.
The ACC has never been louder. It wasn’t a moment; it was an event.
"It’s crazy. This is something that I live for, to be a part of that," said Powell, the 45th-overall pick in 2015 who has turned himself into, arguably, the most productive rookie in the NBA since the all-star break. "To feel the environment and how into it the crowd was. It’s great to see that."
It was the turning point. Powell’s dunk was an exclamation mark on a franchise-record post-season comeback that was hard to see coming. The Raptors were down 15 with 49 seconds left in the third quarter. Powell’s dunk had been preceded by a Terrence Ross three, the only shot he made all game. It came with three starters on the bench. If was followed by triples from DeMar DeRozan and Cory Joseph — perhaps the last two Raptors anyone would tap to blow a game open from behind the arc.
The whole thing was nuts. The Raptors allowed the Pacers 90 points and 12 threes through three quarters, while forcing just 10 turnovers. They held the Indiana to nine points and two threes in the final period while forcing six turnovers.
Powell’s dunk was the highlight-reel play on a night when DeRozan crafted a 34-point redemption tale, setting a career playoff high three days after having perhaps the worst game of his career.
DeRozan is a basketball junkie. He’s watched in other series where stars have broken out for big games when their teams needed them, be it Isaiah Thomas for Boston or Kemba Walker for Charlotte. Levels are getting raised.
"Everyone wants to be one of those guys," DeRozan said before the game. "Everybody’s time is going to come, especially in these moments, you just have to stay positive and keep pushing."
DeRozan did that, but more strategically. He took shots when they were open and moved the ball better when he wasn’t.
Suddenly, a funeral for the Raptors’ hope was transformed into a giddy celebration of what is possible. A lineup featuring Joseph, Bismack Biyombo and Powell, supported by DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, were winning the game. The crowd revelled in the unlikeliness of the whole thing, and they became the sixth man the Pacers couldn’t account for.
Why did Raptors head coach Dwane Casey put that lineup out there?
"That toughness, that want-to, that inner ‘OK, I’m tired of getting my butt kicked, OK we’re going to go to war,’ that group that was in there. I thought they had that," he said.
The crowd fed off it and the Pacers were on their heels for the first time.
"This game’s about runs," said George, who finished with 39 points, just two in the fourth quarter. "I just think as a team, the crowd, the intensity it took away from us being in attack mode and being confident. I thought we played a little nervous, a little tight, on our heels. We just didn’t finish around the basket well enough, we didn’t see the open guys when they helped, but to look at it as a whole, we just played tight, certainly not the way we opened the game up."
The drama wasn’t completely over. After a few more minutes of sparring, the crowd delirious, Solomon Hill hit a three with 16 seconds left to bring the Pacers within one, and after DeRozan knocked down a couple of free throws, Hill hit another one to send the game into overtime, sucking the air out of the building so quickly you feared collapse.
But upon review, the referee ruled the shot had come after the buzzer. It was the difference between dying and being born again.
"It was one of those things, that’s why we have replay," said the Raptors’ DeMarre Carroll. "Thank God we have replay."
It’s probably worth discussing how the Raptors got into a situation where they needed a 23-3 run to set a post-season franchise record for largest comeback.
Safe to say that when Casey decided to start super-sub Patrick Patterson for Luis Scola, he was hoping for better. The idea was more quickness on the weak side, someone who could make the Pacers pay for overloading the defence on DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, either by knocking down a three or driving to the basket as the defence scrambled to meet him.
Not that it was Patterson’s fault, but it couldn’t have worked out worse. The Pacers jumped out to a 35-20 first-quarter lead on the strength of seven three-pointers.
The Raptors were trying to do the right things — DeRozan and Lowry were making a conscious effort to facilitate for their teammates as they combined to take just five shots, as an example in the first quarter. It’s just that nothing was going right.
"It’s frustrating as a player," said Patterson, who finished with seven points on 10 shots in and was minus-20 for his 28 minutes of floor time. "[You’re] thinking you are doing all the right things, rotating, communicating and helping, but they are still scoring."
"[You’re] scrambling and carrying out all the defensive schemes and they are still scoring. Then on offence, getting great looks and the shot is just not falling. Getting great looks and then you’re watching the game … just a mixture of everything, every emotion possible."
And then, in the end, elation. From their depth, the Raptors found a way to rise.
"I swear to you, I sat on the bench and I said to myself from the beginning of the game, ‘I don’t know how, I know we’re going to come up with this win,’" said Bismack Biyombo, the Raptors backup centre who had 10 points and 16 rebounds in 23 minutes. "I don’t know how, but I know somehow, we’re going to get back into this game. It was just a little gap where we were looking to find the energy, how can you push the other players to be on the same page as you? It was a dunk we were looking for, or three points, or one stop, and obviously we got all those things at the beginning of the fourth quarter. And that set the tone for the rest."
Said Joseph, the hometown kid who scored five of his eight points in the fourth and was plus-16 in the fourth quarter with his mom and girlfriend in the front row, and his brother and dad behind the Raptors bench:
"We were playing free. When you’re down like that, you tend to play a little bit more free. There’s less on your mind. You just try to lock in and come back."
The Raptors did just that. No one could have predicted it and anyone who watched it will never forget it, Paul George among them.