This is what home court advantage looks like.
A building full. A crowd in full throat. The villains clearly identified. The heroes without flaw.
It’s been a while, but the Toronto Raptors rode their crowd and some off-the-bench wizardry by Lou Williams to the brink of an unlikely comeback against the hottest and maybe best team in the NBA Wednesday night. They were without their on-floor leader in Kyle Lowry as they took on LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, but found something they have been missing even more.
It ended as might have been predicted as the Raptors lost 120-112, dropping their second straight at home and their sixth in seven games as they struggle to climb out of a mid-season malaise.
But in the effort they might have reminded themselves of what made them good to begin with. They fell behind early. They scrapped back. They energized the crowd and vice versa. They looked like the team that has been showing up only intermittently since the New Year.
“It was unbelievable,” said Greivis Vasquez, who started in place of Lowry and had 13 assists to just one turnover. “I think this game can really set us up to get our swag, our confidence back. We lost but shared the ball, the scoring was spread out, we had guys play extremely well and we took the lead, the crowd got into it and that’s playoff basketball right there. For us it’s a great learning process. We’re playing for something down the road.”
The Raptors were down by 19 after four minutes were gone in the third quarter but the building never really got the memo. Given some hope they responded. It briefly felt like April again, or at least December when the Raptors were rolling.
A pair of DeMar DeRozan triples helped get the lead under 10 while a hard foul by Jonas Valancuinas on James himself just before the end of the third quarter drew a sustained standing ovation from a crowd just happy to see some fight after the Raptors were blown out from beginning to end by the Golden State Warriors last Friday — their last game at the ACC and their first in three weeks.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt him, I was just trying to stop him from dunking the ball, protecting the rim, that’s it. Nothing personal,” said Valancuinas.
The Raptors centre had been an inspiration all night, finishing with 26 points and 11 rebounds, but his brief wrestling with LeBron was his highlight and got the crowd into the game.
And then Williams took over, scoring 21 of his 24 points in the fourth – a Raptors record for a quarter — with help from Terrence Ross who added a pair of long threes including an off-balance shot with 6:14 left that gave the Raptors their last lead, if not their last chance.
There are a range of technical elements the Raptors need to tighten up – a number of blown rotations both in the second quarter hurt them as much as anything that happened down the stretch — but just as important is getting ready to scrap and claw, something they showed they still have in their arsenal.
Hang on to that and they’ll be okay.
“It was huge, the fans were great,” said Raptors head coach Dwane Casey. “It should be a reminder to us. We got back in the game against one of the top teams in the league, that’s what you’re playing for, to play with that kind of emotion and desperation.”
The Raptors luxury of the hot start has given them time to sort things out now even as things are going briefly sideways. Entering the game they have a 12-game lead over Brooklyn in the Atlantic Division. Short of something catastrophic, they will win the division. They were 10 games behind the Atlanta Hawks for the top-seed in the Eastern Conference. The Raptors will not be winning the Eastern Conference. The matchups from the second, third or fourth spots don’t seem to matter that much.
So as dispiriting as it might be pushing the Cavaliers to the limit only to fall short, the only way it should reverberate is the Raptors let it cloud the big picture.
And the big picture is that the Raptors remain on course to enjoy home court in the first round of the playoffs and if they can squeeze out a 12-9 finish, they will become the first team in franchise history to win 50 games. Even 11-10 improves on the franchise record set last season.
And sparks like they showed Wednesday night matter as they try to find their focus over the last quarter of the season.
“We shouldn’t have dug ourselves such a big hole,” said Casey. “But the fight and the scrap we had is something to build on.”
The Cavaliers have been the best team in the NBA since January 15, running up a 20-4 record, emerging as the best offensive team in the league and a top-10 defensive club too.
James has made the Cavs his own and in the rim protection provided by Timofey Mosgov, the lethal offense that Kyrie Irving can provide and the apparent comfort Kevin Love is finding as the third banana – he blew the game open in the second quarter when he went 3-for-3 from three for 11 points in the quarter – suggests that things are beginning to fall into place for a team that has been built and rebuilt on the fly.
But in that effort James is the ultimate connector.
“They have the best basketball player in the world right now, I don’t even think that’s disputed, they might have an argument in Houston,” said Raptors head coach Dwane Casey. “Everyone takes him for granted. He makes it look so easy, all you have to do is everywhere he goes, in time, they win.”
James wasn’t at his best until he needed to be. And just maybe the Raptors and Valancuinas poked the bear: He scored 17 of his 29 points after Valancuinas put him on the floor. His 14 assists were another example of why he’s alone at the top of the NBA pantheon at the moment.
“I think tonight was another great moment for our team,” said James. “We need those moments where it is great, not so great, it is how you come back from those adverse moments defines the team you are and what it could be. To be able to come out and win in a building that is very electric, they played well in the second half and for us to close out the game like we did was a good thing.”
His consecutive three-pointers with the Raptors down three with four minutes left pushed the game out reach. James did what needed to be done.
But even if the loss sent 19,800 people disappointed, there is room for encouragement. The Raptors, mired in the mud though they might be, are closer to being on track than it might appear.
They just have to make sure they don’t lose sight of that.