TORONTO – If the Toronto Raptors’ first-round series against the Indiana Pacers was a Hollywood movie starring DeMar DeRozan, the days between Game 4 and Game 5 would be late in the second act, when it appears the hero has reached a set of obstacles they simply can’t overcome.
In DeRozan’s case it would be the Pacers’ Paul George.
There would be long shots of DeRozan staring vacantly out the window of his condominium and ignoring the efforts of his friends and family to comfort him. Texts of encouragement from Bismack Biyombo would go unreturned.
He would retreat from the world as a way of coping with the shame of his Game 4 performance when the two-time all-star was held to eight points on 15 shots, while coughing up six turnovers and generally appearing like this whole playoff basketball thing was beyond his means. Splice in a montage of the anti-DeRozan venom on social media; mix in some sound from basketball insiders and media questioning everything about his game and the scene is complete.
Then would come Game 5, DeRozan’s response, when he answers both his external critics and his wavering inner voice with a playoff career-high 34-point outing, punctuated by the never-in-doubt three that capped off the Raptors’ furious fourth-quarter comeback.
If that’s not the climax it very well could be the step that precedes it, providing the Raptors pick up where they left off on Tuesday and finish the Pacers in Game 6 in Indianapolis.
Pull it off and the movie – working title: Max Money – could become a top grossing release this summer. Fall short? The flick might never see the light of day.
But that’s if the playoffs was a movie and DeRozan an action hero. In reality? The trick to surviving the post-season – basketball’s ultimate reality series – is to find a way to make the days after one of the best games of your life not much different than the ones following perhaps the worst game you’ve ever played.
Call it staying even-keeled or managing your emotions.
DeRozan says it’s important to stay mellow. It’s boring, but for DeRozan it works.
“You can’t [get too high or too low], you can’t,” he said on Wednesday, as fans, media and players alike were trying to parse out exactly how the Raptors pulled off their once-in-a-lifetime 23-2 run that turned a potentially franchise-shaking loss into one of the greatest nights in Raptors history.
“Especially being in the league for awhile now, you’ve really got to stay level. You have to, because it can always change that quick, anything can happen, so you’ve got to stay humble, stay mellow and understand you have another opportunity to do more than what you did.”
Scrape away all the doubts and all the questions – fair or otherwise – about DeRozan’s ability to lead a team deep into the post-season and that may be the best insight you can get into how DeRozan has arrived at this point in his career.
In a league where incremental development tends to get overlooked – a common refrain in the NBA is that players’ destinies are determined by their third season – It took five years for DeRozan to become an overnight success.
In that context perhaps it’s not all that surprising that it took DeRozan three years and 16 games before he looked in a playoff game anything like the regular-season all-star he’s become.
DeRozan has a lot of natural talent but his basketball skills have been painstakingly constructed over long hours. He acknowledges his gifts rushed him through a number of development stages when he was younger. His most important gift might be that he recognized that and was willing to circle back to fill in the gaps in his game. That’s how you have the best year of your career in your seventh season.
So DeRozan is used to going back to the drawing board. He didn’t sulk after Game 4. The only frustration he’ll admit to is the feeling he let his teammates down.
“I beat myself up from the standpoint of if I’m letting my teammates down,” he said. “I hate that. But when it comes to anything with me personally, I really don’t beat myself up.”
Instead, DeRozan got to work.
He went over a lot of film from the first four games of the series – the ones in which he shot just 29.6 per cent from the floor – and saw how his determination to carry the Raptors offensively as he had all season was playing into the Pacers’ hands. Indiana would load up defenders on him and DeRozan would take longer and longer to try and find a weakness. Over and over again he found himself dribbling into the teeth of their coverage.
In practice on Monday he spent time with assistant coach Rex Kalamian to speed up his decision making. Given the ball and shown a coverage by a primary defender with other assistants in help position, DeRozan had to decide in 0.5 seconds whether to shoot, pass or drive.
In theory the intent was to get DeRozan to trust his first instinct and go with it, forcing the defence to adjust to him, rather than other way around.
In practice it meant significantly less dribbling. His first basket of the game was a simple two-dribble pull up, going to his left, with George tied up by a Jonas Valancuinas screen. His huge first quarter dunk through the lane required just three dribbles from the bottom of the claw logo as he used a Biyombo screen to attack the lane cleanly and with speed. His massive fourth-quarter three-pointer, set-up by a pass off penetration by Kyle Lowry, required no dribbles.
Was dribbling less a conscious decision?
“Yup, yup, yup,” said DeRozan. “…A lot of times when I got the ball it was more reaction if I needed them or not. Whatever way I was going to go I was just going to go. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t try to hold the ball too much. Either I was going to make a play or try to get to the basket or I get to my spot. And it kind of worked.”
He got his share of help. One of the reasons Biyombo got so much playing time (24 minutes) is that he’s a better and more mobile screener than Jonas Valanciunas. The Raptors made a decision to set screens for DeRozan higher on the floor so he could attack them with speed. His drive through the lane that set up Cory Joseph’s dagger three in the fourth came on just such a play.
“Going into the second half, it was just having a mentality of trying to find a way of getting our guys better shots, either it’s layups or those shots,” said Biyombo, who could get an Oscar for best supporting actor in the drama that was Game 5. He put up 12 points and collected 16 rebounds and nearly every key play was prompted by one of his big, sticky ball screens.
“I think we did a better job of setting those screens. … I mean, we got some layups. … I think I set a nice screen for DeMar to set up Cory’s three points and we went up six. Those were important plays to us and a lot of guys were involved.”
But perhaps, most importantly, they contributed to DeRozan getting involved, something Biyombo took personally.
“I talk a lot to DeMar, honestly,” he said. “I always text him before the games. DeMar is one of those guys who once his shots start falling, he’s unstoppable. He’s shown that all season. But at the same time we knew this would happen, we just didn’t know when and obviously as the series goes on you don’t know who is going to catch fire. He showed that from the beginning of the game, he was really aggressive. I always tell him, there’s games when you come out really aggressive and I looked and told Cory [Joseph] the same thing – it’s going to be a long night for them. By the end of the game, his numbers were great. He’s an all-star for a reason. You’ve just got to believe in him.”
In the movies the hero faces his doubts. Their comebacks are sparked by moments or truth when they confront their deepest fears.
Basketball is not Hollywood – the greatest scriptwriters would toss out the Raptors comeback in Game 5 as too far-fetched.
And DeRozan? He may have been the hero and may well need to be in Game 6, but he found his redemption not in doing anything different, but rather being a slightly different version of the same guy.
He didn’t get too low and found it easier to fly higher.
“I think just me being older, maturing, going through a lot basketball-wise, I never got frustrated,” he said. “It’s easy to complain or make excuses when things are not going your way the previous games, but I know how hard I work, how much I put into the game, and I’m not who I am for no reason. I knew it was going to come. It’s all about being patient and when my team needed it most, it came through.”