TORONTO – Stop if you’ve read this before. Pause if you need to settle your stomach before it comes up all at once.
The plot outline for Nightmare on Bay Street: Opposing all-star rolls into a sold-out Air Canada Centre early on an April Saturday afternoon, surveys the crowd, soaks up the atmosphere and feasts on all their cherished hopes even as that same energy turns the hometown heroes into ice sculptures.
That’s right, it’s playoff time in Toronto.
In the past it’s been Allen Iverson or Dwight Howard. Two years ago it was Paul Pierce and last year it was Paul Pierce again.
It doesn’t matter who really, the reality is thousands of people get all excited, allow themselves to feel like it’s safe to believe and next thing you know they are crushed.
Happens every time.
This time around it was Paul George and the Indiana Pacers doing the damage. They arrived as the biggest underdog Toronto has drawn yet in the post-season, given the Raptors’ franchise-best No. 2 seed.
Whatever. At this point it almost feels like a good college team could arrive in mid-April and benefit as the Raptors trip over their own feet. In this case Indiana grinded the game down, showed the Raptors stars wave upon wave of bodies on their way to the 100-90 win in Game 1.
It was a close game – Toronto led by one at the half and trailed by three heading into the fourth quarter – but it never felt like the Raptors’ game to win. They were playing that poorly, and when George watched some video at half and came out to rip the Raptors for 27 of his 33 points and five of his six assists, their fate was sealed.
It marks the eighth playoff series in franchise history that the Raptors have failed to win the opener, which goes a long way towards explaining why the Raptors are 1-8 all-time in post-season series.
The current cast haven’t been here for all of that, but dating back to Game 6 and 7 of their first-round loss to the Brooklyn Nets two years ago and their sweep at the hands of the Washington Wizards last year, the current Raptors core has now lost seven straight playoff games and three times blown Game 1 on home court.
The Raptors are loathe to acknowledge any carryover from their own recent past, let alone feel the weight of failures from a decade before or more.
Who can blame them? It’s the kind of history you are wise to run from before it drags you down for good.
“This is different, different team, different moment,” said DeMar DeRozan. “We just played bad. We played terrible at home. We understand we have to go on the road and get one. We play extremely well on the road. We just have take care of home Monday [for Game 2]. We didn’t tell ourselves we would go out there and go 4-0.”
But 1-0 would be nice, just one time. At the very least it would allow the post-season glow to last a little longer before the gut churning begins.
This Game 1 power outage seemed uglier than most, given Toronto’s well-founded optimism. The sun was shining in Jurassic Park, the Raptors were largely healthy and they were playing a team they’d won five straight games against at the ACC on their way to winning the season series for two straight years.
But things went all wrong, and fast. The breezy confidence during the build-up to the playoffs, earned from a record-setting 56-win season didn’t insulate the Raptors from yet another bought of Game 1 jitters.
“Bright lights, I don’t know, but I thought as a team as a whole we were tight, offensively,” said Raptors head coach Dwane Casey, left to explain again how being the higher seed and hosting the playoff opener so quickly turned into a hand grenade with the pin pulled. “And that frustration carried over on defence and you can’t have that.”
Protecting the ball was a big theme before the game, given the Pacers led the NBA in points off turnovers. Toronto turned the ball over 20 times, leading to 25 Pacers points.
The Raptors were hopeful this was the year their all-stars, Kyle Lowry and DeRozan would dominate a playoff series the way they have the regular season so often in recent years.
Instead DeRozan finished with 14 points on five-of-19 shooting. Lowry ended up with 11 on 3-of-13. Neither of them redeemed themselves in any other particular manner. DeRozan’s success this season has been built in large measure by his ability to force teams to foul him and him converting at the free throw line. When teams don’t foul or refs don’t give him the whistle he wants, it can look like a lot of forced shots which was the case in Game 1, as he got to the line just six times for four points.
Lowry? This is supposed to be a redemption tour for him. No single player wore the Raptors capitulation at the hands of the Wizards a year ago more than Lowry.
It was in the days following that four-game sweep, where Lowry shot just 32 per cent, that the seeds of his career-best season were sown. He pledged to lose weight, get fit and stay healthy and made good on every promise.
But against the Pacers in the playoffs it was like old times. Not only did he struggle shooting, but he seemed befuddled when it came time to make decisions with the ball, leading to six turnovers.
And while he pronounced himself healthy before the playoffs started after having his elbow drained due to bursitis, foul shooting has been a problem since his elbow issues surfaced in March and Lowry was a momentum-sapping 4-of-9 from the line and a miserable 1-of-7 from deep.
He denied any problems, of course, said his elbow was fine. But he said that last year too as he laboured through the playoffs playing with a calf strain, a wonky back and a head cold.
The Raptors are fighting to make sure they don’t end up with the playoff flu one more time. They sound determined not to panic. It would be great to believe them.
Said DeRozan: “I just missed shots … I’m not going to have a great shooting night every night, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to go 5-of-19 again.
Said Lowry: “We’re good man, it’s one game. It’s not last year, we’re very prepared, we’re confident. We just got to go out and do what we got to do.”
They are supposed to be reassuring words, but in this case actions will have to speak. This movie has been shown too many times.