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Tim bontempsESPN
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – For many reasons, notably the loss of NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard in free agency, the Toronto Raptors entered the 2019-20 season as the least advertised league champion since the Dallas. 2011 Mavericks. Las Vegas sportsbooks set the line for the Raptors’ wins at 46.5, the lowest for a defending champion since at least 2001, according to research by ESPN Stats and Information. The ESPN Forecast panel projected the Raptors for 45 wins, closer to missing the 2020 NBA playoffs than finishing atop the Eastern Conference again.
But all season long, the Raptors defied the odds. After losses in free agency, countless lost games due to injuries, and a pandemic that halted the season for four months, Toronto set a franchise record for winning percentage and finished with the second-best record in the NBA, and still He flew. under the radar.
“I don’t think anybody is going to pay much attention,” Toronto coach Nick Nurse said with a wry smile when asked if the Raptors’ win over the Los Angeles Lakers in their first-seeded game inside of the NBA bubble would serve to warn the rest. of the NBA. “It seems they never do.”
The Raptors are used to that. One year after becoming the first team to win a title without a single lottery pick since the inception of the lottery draft in 1985, Toronto remains a team full of players who have exceeded expectations throughout their careers. Now, they have rallied from a 2-0 deficit to turn their conference semifinals against the Boston Celtics into a best-of-three series. And they enter Game 5 on Monday with the same confidence they have shown all season and the desire to show they are capable of keeping the Larry O’Brien Trophy north of the border.
“We’re still hungry,” forward Serge Ibaka said after Toronto’s Game 4 win. “But we still have work to do.”
WHILE MOST The NBA canceled Toronto’s chances of winning back-to-back titles at the very moment Leonard wrote his name at the bottom of a contract with the LA Clippers, the Raptors never did.
“The first two boys I saw [after Leonard left] they were kyle [Lowry] and Fred [VanVleet], and they both said Danny made 30 shots [Green] and Kawhi left, and they were ready to take them away, “said the nurse.” It’s the way we approach it. “
The phrase “never underestimate the heart of a champion,” coined by another overlooked defending champion, the 1995 Houston Rockets, has become something of a meme throughout the season among Raptors fans on social media. social. The sentiment applies to this list, which, from top to bottom, is filled with players who have been questioned or discarded at some point in their career.
“They’ve heard from our guys,” Toronto general manager Bobby Webster said before the seeded games began. “They can’t wait to get out, they always have that chip on their shoulder, they continue to show everyone who doubted them.”
Lowry fell to the bottom of the first round and was traded twice before becoming an All-Star and potential future Hall of Famer in Toronto. VanVleet, his running mate in the backcourt, was an undersized undrafted free agent; now he’s expecting a big payoff this offseason as a free agent after repeatedly betting on himself. The Raptors’ main backup Norman Powell was a second-round pick who has emerged as one of the league’s best sixth men.
Pascal Siakam was another late first-round pick that various teams suggested would have to go to Europe as a draft and backup prospect, but has become an All-Star for Toronto.
Even Nurse, the current NBA Coach of the Year, made several stops in Europe and the G League before finally getting his first shot at an NBA head coaching job last season.
That shared experience has created a group of people who have exceeded expectations, both collectively and independently. These people may have surprised outsiders with their success, but they have always believed that they could succeed.
“We know we have a winning team,” Powell said. “We know we have a championship caliber team. We have a lot of guys who had that feeling of what it’s like to win and be on top of the mountain last year that they’re back and they’re better and they’re playing well together.”
Before the March 11 shutdown, the Raptors problem didn’t work well together; I was playing together, period.
Toronto lost 219 combined team games due to injury, fifth most in the NBA and second among teams that reached the postseason (behind only the Portland Trail Blazers). Lowry missed 11 games in November and December with a broken thumb. Ibaka was out during the same stretch with a sprained ankle. Shortly after his return, Siakam missed 12 games with a groin strain. VanVleet missed 18 games with injuries to the hamstring, knee and shoulder. And center Marc Gasol played only once in the last 17 games leading up to the shutdown due to a hamstring injury.
In total, the Raptors playoff starting five from Lowry, VanVleet, Siakam, Gasol and Game 3 hero OG Anunoby, who has been healthy this season after missing the entire 2019 postseason due to an appendectomy, started just 17 off. all 64 Toronto games. before the league parenthesis.
Ask the Raptors, though, and they won’t tell you they’re surprised by his success, despite the loss of Leonard or the number of games they’ve been forced to play without his full complement of talent. Instead, they attribute it to the symbiotic nature of their group.
“The strength of the team, the beauty of basketball, [is that] this is not tennis, “said Gasol.” We are not talking about Rafa Nadal or [Novak] Djokovic or Roger Federer – or [Canadian Milos] Raonic. We are talking about basketball. It is a team sport. It’s how well you work as a team. It is a team effort. It will always be. It doesn’t matter how hard we try to single out the game. “
Part of the continuity and dynamics of the team that exists within the Raptors comes from the time their core has been together. Aside from Gasol, who was acquired in the middle of last season, and undrafted rookie Terence Davis, the other six players that make up Toronto’s rotation – Lowry, VanVleet, Siakam, Ibaka, Anunoby and Powell – have been with the team. for three or more seasons. Nurse is only in his second season as head coach, but he was in Toronto for several more as an assistant before that.
That kind of continuity doesn’t just create friendships that are otherwise rarely formed; It also creates a synergy on the court that allows the Raptors to adapt on the fly in ways that other teams cannot replicate.
“There are a lot of special guys on this team,” Nurse said. “There is some specialty to them individually, and then there is that little thing called chemistry, effort and toughness that, again, I think makes us a special team.”
THE RAPTORS STILL they lack a key component that almost every NBA champion has: a player in the top five. Siakam was successful as the team’s star and the nighttime focus of opposing defenses during the regular season, but has been outmatched in that role in this series against the Celtics. After averaging 22.9 points per game during the regular season, Siakam is scoring 17.3 points per game on 38.6% shooting in four games against Boston, including a dismal 2-for-13 effort from 3-point range in Game 4.
“Sometimes you’re going to shoot and sometimes you’re not,” Siakam said. “I have to understand that I just have to keep doing the other things. That’s something I’m focusing on, and I’m not worried about marks and mistakes. I’m worried about impacting the game in different ways.”
In Game 4, Siakam dropped 11 rebounds, tying Lowry for high game. And a game earlier, he was the team’s best plus 12 in Toronto’s 1-point win. So, to his point, he’s been able to impact the game in ways that go beyond scoring.
Those little things, and the Raptors’ collective belief in themselves, have proven enough to at least give Toronto a shot. The Raptors were within 0.5 seconds of falling 3-0, a hole from which no NBA team has ever recovered. Instead, Anunoby made the team’s first buzzer since Leonard’s Game 7 shot against the Philadelphia 76ers a year ago. Then Lowry, VanVleet and Siakam played the entire second half for Toronto to win Game 4.
The Raptors were almost ruled out against Boston, but they are used to it. Before Leonard arrived, their postseason reputation was a team that always lost Game 1 and was tormented by LeBron James. Last year, when James was no longer in the East, the Raptors found themselves behind in both the second round against the 76ers and in the conference finals against the Milwaukee Bucks, before coming back to win those series and dethrone the Golden State. Warriors in the Finals.
Now, a year after becoming the first team outside of the United States to win an NBA title, the Raptors are trying to make history again, as they are only the second team to overcome a 2-0 postseason deficit. back-to-back, joining 1995’s. Rockets, who used their second-round comeback as a stepping stone to a second straight title.
“We know who we are and that we are good enough to do it and that we are tough,” VanVleet said. “It’s going to be tough to beat us four times. If you can do it, we’ll shake your hand and congratulate you. But I think we all like our chances.”
