TORONTO — On Monday night in Miami, as the Raptors’ Game 4 loss to the Heat was winding down, Bismack Biyombo sat nailed to the bench, watching a small Miami lineup attack the paint with great success against an equally small Toronto rotation. He was fuming with frustration.
His head coach, Dwane Casey, was concerned about a lack of offence after Kyle Lowry fouled out of the game, and insisted on matching Miami’s small lineup. So, Biyombo watched the last two minutes of regulation, as Heat star Dwyane Wade tied the game with seconds left on a layup from two feet out, cutting right into the heart of Biyombo’s normal station.
And the Raptors centre watched the first four minutes of overtime, too, as Patrick Patterson — playing in Biyombo’s place — tipped a contested rebound into his own basket, and then Joe Johnson found room to sink a jumper in the paint, opening a four-point lead the Heat would never relinquish.
On the replay of Johnson’s shot you can see Biyombo sitting on the bench in the background, elbows on his knees, slumping his head forward as another basket was made that he thought he could have prevented.
Reminded of this about 45 minutes after Wednesday night’s Game 5 victory, while he stood all alone in an empty, well-heated Raptors locker room, wearing a trim grey suit with a white shirt and black tie, Biyombo wiped the sweat from his forehead and admitted that Game 4 moment was, in a word, frustrating.
“It was. It was. Honestly speaking, man, it really was,” Biyombo said, repeatedly. “But at the same time this is a learning process for us, for the coaches, for everybody. We all have to learn from this and get better from it as we move forward.”
And move forward we do, to that Wednesday night win, when Biyombo was on the floor for almost the entire final 10 minutes as the Heat went with an uber small lineup yet again and attempted a comeback. Biyombo drew two fouls down that stretch and kept the Heat from earning easy baskets or fouls of their own under the Raptors rim, forcing Miami to take contested jump shots from well outside the paint.
He finished the night having played nearly 38 minutes, by far the most he’s seen in any game of these playoffs. And although his stat line won’t jump off the page at you — he finished with 10 points, six rebounds and four blocked shots — his mere presence under both baskets and on screens was absolutely crucial to the Raptors’ 99-91 victory.
“I thought he was solid from a physicality standpoint; setting solid screens. He set the tone that way,” Casey said. “He did an excellent job in the paint. Joe Johnson’s a handful and when Dwyane Wade gets going he’s a handful, too. I thought Bismack’s presence at the pick-and-roll was huge for us. That was very important.”
Like Biyombo said, it appears the learning process took place. While Casey had plenty of reason to experiment with matching the Heat’s small lineup of wings and guards during Game 4 — especially with Lowry out of the game — it was clear from Game 5 that the Raptors best counter to that Heat rotation is one that includes Biyombo’s big body protecting the rim.
“Last game, when they went small and we went small, they were stronger than us. Most of the points that they scored were in the paint,” Biyombo says. “And tonight most of the shots that they were trying to take were jump shots. Which is great for us. They tried to stay away from the paint. We stayed big so we forced them to play our way instead of us trying to play their way.
“I can guard smalls. I can get out there and still be a defensive presence in the paint,” he adds. “They’ll have to shoot a lot of jump shots. We can’t let them just lay the ball in. Because, man, everybody was trying to dunk the ball in the last game when they went small. We know we have bigs that can guard smalls. It’s just about us playing our game.”
Of course, Biyombo’s been thinking about this for days, since those late moments of Game 4 when he sat stewing on the bench. He never brought it up to Casey between then and now. And Casey never brought it up to him. As Game 5 developed, leaving Biyombo on the floor was simply the obvious choice.
“I didn’t talk to nobody about it. As a player, you have to accept decisions and let the coach do his job. The coach is the coach for a reason. And you have to respect that. I’m not going to tell him how to do things,” Biyombo says. “You find other ways to contribute. You watch film, you talk to your teammates, you support them. If you just focus on the negative, the more you give it attention, the more it grows.
“Right now, we don’t have time for any negatives,” he continues. “As soon as that game’s over, it’s a quick turnaround. And coming into the next one you can’t have those thoughts. You have to forget all bout that and just focus on going out there and getting a win.”
And, simply put, the Raptors don’t get that win Wednesday night without Biyombo. He’s easily the most dominant paint presence currently playing in this series. As long as Hassan Whiteside remains sidelined, and Miami’s options at centre are the physically inferior Amar’e Stoudemire and Udonis Haslem, Biyombo should be able to operate with relative impunity on both ends of the floor.
And that’s what he did for most of Wednesday night, bullying the Heat under both baskets and, at one point in the second quarter, turning the game into his own personal highlight reel — and a satisfying moment of revenge.
It started with five minutes left, when Biyombo rebounded a missed DeMar DeRozan jump shot and flushed it over a pair of Heat defenders with two hands. He jogged back up the court to his own end and defended a Heat screen-and-roll perfectly, helping guard his man at first before retreating quickly and meeting Wade at the rim as the veteran guard drove in for a dunk.
Biyombo swatted the ball away and sent Wade spilling to the floor in the process, pausing for a moment to stand over the future Hall of Famer and wag his finger as the Raptors ran back up the court. Seconds later, there was Biyombo flying into the Miami paint, taking a feed from Lowry, and throwing down his strongest dunk of the night to push the Raptors out to a 19-point lead.
Biyombo ate it up as he paced back up the court, waving his arms in the air as the Air Canada Centre erupted around him. But it was the moment standing over Wade, glaring down at the fallen Heat star, that felt best.
“When I was watching the last game from the bench and he got that last bucket — I just didn’t feel right,” Biyombo says. “So, that was just me letting him know that, down the stretch, whenever he comes down into the paint, I’m going to be there. It ain’t going to be the same.”
