The Roar
The Roar

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Hot up in the 6: Toronto's terribly successful postseason

Dwyane Wade has made the move to the Cavs (Gabriel Li / Flickr)
Expert
8th May, 2016
4

Those who pine for the past need to look no further than Toronto and South Beach to realise that they’re deeply, deeply mistaken.

The Raptors and Heat are partying like it’s 2001. Their series is a throwback to the post-Jordan era where every guard or wing with a bit of a handle and a bit of a stroke convinced themselves that His Airness was replicable. Hopelessly grounded hero ball resulted, with ‘stars’ waving off their teammates, isolating and shooting from the mid-range, the most cinematically glorious place on the floor, thanks to Jordan’s heroics.

Series were decided by Allen Iverson going eight for 27 when Vince Carter could only go six for 18. It was ugly, individualistic basketball, but with the selflessness of LeBron James and the analytically magical shooting of Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, it was supposed to be left behind. But DeMar DeRozan had other plans.

It’s not entirely fair heaping the responsibility for this rock-fight of a series at DeRozan’s feet. Joe Johnson is shooting 37% for the series on over 17 shots a game without having made a single three-pointer. Kyle Lowry was having what might have been the worst postseason in NBA history before his nervous breakdown halted in game three. And Udonis Haslem is playing a not insignificant role in proceedings. But really, this is DeRozan’s fault.

DeRozan’s game, in the playoffs at least, has only been as disgusting as it’s been dumb. He spends offensive possessions slowly, agonisingly dribbling out the shot clock, meandering around the top of the key, rarely looking to pass, and then clanking an atrocious contested mid-range jump-shot two feet inside the arc off the back of the rim.

Against Paul George, DeRozan could get no separation and was powerless to do anything. George wore him like a glove, and DeRozan could barely maintain his dribble and get his shots off let alone make them. George is one of the game’s elite perimeter defenders, so it’s not shocking that DeRozan was made to look so feeble. Excuses against this Miami defence are harder to find.

DeRozan has virtually given up shooting threes, and the wing scorer who can’t be efficient from deep is a dying breed. But DeRozan usually compensates for his aversion to going downtown by taking trips to the free throw line. He averaged 8.4 free throw attempts per 36 minutes in the regular season, the fifth-highest rate in the league. In the playoffs that number has plummeted to 5.7.

Opposite DeRozan, Dwyane Wade is showing that the past can still be cool. His recent marvelous and inexplicable hot streak from deep notwithstanding, Wade is an old-school paint and mid-range artist. He does all the things that DeRozan does – slither around picks into the paint, launch from mid-range, and manoeuvre himself to the line. Wade just does everything better.

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Where DeRozan looks confused and burdened, Wade looks purposeful and emboldened. Wade reminding the world that he’s one of the game’s greatest ever two-guards has been the best story of an underwhelming playoffs.

But Wade doesn’t look like he’s getting out of this round. Because for all DeRozan’s struggles and Toronto’s failings, of which there have been many, somehow the Raptors are two wins away from the conference finals.

They still have time to prove themselves against the Heat, but there may never be a less inspiring path to the conference finals than the one that Toronto have stumbled along this April and May. They let an Indiana team that regularly played a line-up of Ty Lawson, Rodney Stuckey, C.J. Miles, Solomon Hill and Ian Mahimni take them to seven games, a series where they didn’t just limp over the finish line, they passed out, concussed themselves on the ground and then were blown over the finish line by a gust of wind.

The Heat are a much trickier proposition but they’re still a team whose bench comprises two rookies, Udonis Haslem, Amar’e Stoudemire and Josh McRoberts. With Hassan Whiteside potentially going down, Miami won’t have anyone to even pretend to protect the rim. There’s no way, with a series lead, home-court advantage, and Miami perhaps losing arguably its most indispensable player, that Toronto can lose this series. Except, of course, that they absolutely can.

Toronto’s insipid performances in the playoffs have been almost inexplicable. The collapse of Kyle Lowry from ‘arguable top ten player in the game’ to ‘unable to play the sport of basketball’ has been as remarkable as it has been absurd. Possible elbow soreness does not explain Lowry’s historic funk. He looks entirely lost out there, shrinking from the moment and looking like Vince Carter used to look shooting vital free throws in the final minute of games, only Lowry’s nervousness extends to all 48 minutes.

Lowry has been getting to the hoop, refusing to shoot open layups and then tossing bizarre, pseudo-alley-oops to trailing big men who have almost no hope of corralling them. He turned the corner at the end of game two, hitting two clutch long jump-shots in the final minute of regulation. But even then, on the second shot, as soon as it left his hand Lowry ran forward to crash the offensive boards, anticipating a miss. Maybe that’s responsible basketball, but you won’t see Curry or Durant doing that on makes.

Lowry broke out of his slump in a huge way in game three, dropping 33 points and five triples on 58% shooting from the floor. More to the point, he looked like Kyle Lowry again. But it’s only one game, and while that might be all it takes to bring his confidence back, it’s a tiny sample size for a player who had been atrocious in the nine preceding matches.

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Toronto’s playoff run to date has echoed LeBron’s previous two eastern conference challengers – the 2014 Pacers and the 2015 Hawks. Both of those teams came into the postseason with expectations of toppling James. Both of them laboured through the opening two rounds, and then served as little more than small, innocuous roadblocks for James in the last dance before the finals.

The Raptors will be desperate to avoid that same fate, as inevitable as it looks at this stage given how they’ve played and how Cleveland has found its groove. But those Pacers and Hawks were dealing with deeper malaises and a loss of identity. These Raptors are dealing with their two best players forgetting that they’re good at basketball. That might be a more serious problem, but it’s also one that’s less likely to endure.

Lowry and DeRozan have played two good games combined in the playoffs out of 20, and the Raptors are still set to make the conference finals. They’ve come this far because of contributions from the likes of Cory Joseph, Bismack Biyombo, Norman Powell and Jonas Valanciunas. Those players were supposed to be the question marks entering the playoffs, but they’ve been the team’s most reliable answers. DeMarre Carroll is playing heavy minutes and beginning to look like himself. Dwayne Casey seems to have figured out his line-ups (at last). All that’s left is for the two players that drove Toronto to the playoffs to finally get on board again.

The Raptors are sneakily one of the game’s most tortured franchises. It’s hard not to root for them, and in particular for Lowry and DeRozan, who seem like two of the game’s most genuine and likeable stars. Raptors fans could have disbanded long ago and they would have been justified in doing so. But they’ve stuck around as some of the game’s best and loudest fans.

They deserve better than what they’ve got ever since Vince Carter stabbed them in the back. The weight of expectation is enormous for this team, and so far it’s crushed Lowry and DeRozan. Toronto’s season and its future depend on the ability of their two stars to start running through the Six again, this time without their woes.

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