TORONTO — As the Toronto Raptors walked off their home court for the last time this season, filing solemnly into the darkness of the tunnel, up a small ramp, and through the stainless steel doors of their dressing room, they looked like a team that had been through a lot.
Kyle Lowry had a towel over his head; James Johnson had his jersey pulled up over his face; Bismack Biyombo wasn’t wearing a jersey at all, striding topless into the dressing room, lean delts and traps bulging behind him as he outstretched his arms to high-five the receiving line of staff awaiting the players just inside those big doors, with general manager Masai Ujiri at the head of it.
This truly was a crazy run. The Raptors played 20 games this post-season, the final 14 of them with only a day off in-between each. That’s at the end of a gruelling regular season, one that saw six Raptors rack up 76 games or more. All told, Biyombo played 102 games of basketball over the last seven months, which is a hell of a grind. You’d be ready to get that jersey off your back, too.
“We’ve accomplished a lot of things that people said we couldn’t accomplish,” Biyombo said, dapper as always after the game, in a clean-fitted white dress shirt and blue vest. “The guys in this locker room believed each and every night. We went out there and competed. … At the beginning of this series, everybody thought it was going to be a 4-0 series. And of course we surprised people. We believed in ourselves.”
He’s right. At no point in these playoffs were the Raptors every truly considered a threat. Not when they lost their first game of the post-season against the Indiana Pacers and flirted with the possibility of being eliminated in the first round for the third straight season. Not when they struggled mightily to contain Dwyane Wade and Joe Johnson in the second round against the Heat. And not when they went down 2-0 to the Cavaliers early in this Eastern Conference Finals.
Of course, it’s over now. The Cavaliers rained three-pointers on the Raptors all night and not even the wide shoulders of Kyle Lowry, who scored 18 points in the third quarter alone, could carry the Raptors out of this one. But the sense in that post-loss locker room wasn’t of despondence. It was of promise. Of optimism. Of better things to come.
“I feel like I was part of something special this year,” the oldest Toronto Raptor, 36-year-old forward Luis Scola, said. “I think we’ve got a great thing going as a franchise. A lot of young players; a lot of good talent. It’s very hard to come here for the first time and win. You have to lose first to win. It’s not like that all the time, but most of the time it is. Last year prepared us to get through the first round. Hopefully this year prepared us to get through the conference finals. Maybe next year we can come back and make another push.”
Scola’s words reflect the general tenor in that room: that this was just the beginning. Here’s some other scenes from an appropriately somber yet optimistic Raptors dressing room after the final game of the best season in franchise history.
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Terrence Ross was the first Raptor dressed in his civvies after the game—a black leather jacket over jeans and white sneakers—and the first to talk to the huddle of media in the centre of the oval space, holding his 1-year-old son in his arms as he chatted.
“Playing that long after the regular season ends, it’s almost a different season altogether,” Ross said, as his wide-eyed son grabbed at the fuzzy microphone socks around him, trying to pry them off their batons. “One thing we learned was how to keep going. This is as far as any of us have been. It took a lot. But we knew how to push. So, next year we’re going training for that, and be ready for that. Next time we’re in this situation we’ll know how to handle it.”
One Raptor who really did have to push was Jonas Valanciunas, who sprained his ankle in the third game of the Miami series, missed two weeks of games, and ultimately gutted it out to play 17 minutes Friday night, grabbing a game-high four offensive rebounds.
Injuries limited him throughout this long season, which was nevertheless an important one in the young centre’s development. After the game, someone asked him how close to 100 per cent he ever really was.
“You always want these percentages, these numbers,” Valanciunas said, shaking his head in bewilderment as he stood in front of a dressing room white board that still had plays drawn up on it in blue ink. “I was ready. I was ready to go. I was going. I was playing. Not everything was right. But that’s the game.
“Going through this, you learn how to handle the pressure. You learn what it takes to be here. It’s a big step. If you’ve never been here, you don’t know what it’s like. What it’s like to be in the locker room; what it’s like to prepare for every game. It’s a different game—a different intensity. The playoffs are a totally different animal.”
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The first thing Norman Powell, the steely-eyed Raptors rookie, did when his team got back to their dressing room after Game 6 was grab a basketball and a sharpie. Fellow rookie Delon Wright did the same, and followed along as the pair slowly circulated the room, handing the items to each and every one of their teammates for signatures.
“It’s my rookie year. You’re only a rookie once. So, getting this ball means a lot,” Powell said. “I have a lot of memories with these guys. It’s something special to be on a team that makes it to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time. So, this ball is for all those memories.”
It’s a shooting ball; one the Raptors used throughout the year during practices and pre-game shootaround, which is where Powell left a lasting impression on his teammates, constantly the one staying late, constantly the one who was last off the floor. He plans to give the ball to his mother, Sharon, who will find a nice spot for it back in Norman’s childhood California home.
You may have gleaned by now that Powell is a bit of a basketball junkie. A second-round selection in last summer’s draft, the 23-year-old wound up starting 24 games in his rookie season, and saw plenty of time in the playoffs, especially in the Raptors’ first-round victory over the Pacers.
When you include the 2015 NBA Summer League, where he was named a first team all-star on the Raptors team that went 3-0 in the preliminary round but came up short in the championship, Powell has essentially been playing basketball for 11 months straight.
But presented with an opportunity to step away for a moment, to catch his breath, to let his body heal, following the Raptors playoff exit, Powell wanted no part of it. Shortly after the game he asked Raptors assistant coach Jama Mahlalela if he could meet him in the gym Saturday morning to work on some things. Mahlalela laughed; Powell was being completely serious.
“I’ve always had a hard time getting away from the game and giving my body time to rest,” Powell said. “But everybody’s saying that I’ve got to give myself some time. They’re telling me how it’s going to be a long grind. You know, especially with me being young and summer league being right around the corner.”
Summer league? After 11 straight months of basketball, after a Spartan race of a playoff run that saw the team play every other day when they were their most spent, and after establishing himself this season as a bona fide NBA regular, Powell plans to go play summer league in July?
“Oh yeah, I will. For sure. I really want to,” Powell said, cradling that signed basketball under his right arm. “I’m still a little upset that we didn’t win it all last year. So, I’ve got a chip on my shoulder going in there. I want to try to get back to that and win the summer league.
“I’m looking forward to improving my game and pushing myself to take a greater leap for next year. I’m really excited about this summer. I learned a lot this season. But I think I can really grow this summer and contribute more next year.”
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Cory Joseph has been here before. Not only as a member of the San Antonio Spurs for the past four seasons, experiencing that great franchise’s repeated runs into the playoffs, but as a Torontonian as well.
Growing up in the city he now plays for, Joseph watched the Raptors’ playoff runs at the turn of the century on the back of Vince Carter, and the two return trips in 2007 and 2008, with a young Chris Bosh doing the heavy lifting.
“It was special to me,” Joseph said. “Every time I suit up, no matter the outcome, no matter how I play, I try to leave it all out there. I feel like I owe it to my city being from here. I have so many friends and family here. And the fans have been great for us the whole way.”
Now he gets to reflect on being an indispensable part of the first Raptors team to go deeper into the post-season than all those other ones he watched as a kid; the first to get this close to going where Joseph’s Spurs went in 2013 and 2014.
“I know the roller coasters these fans have been through in the past. I’ve been through those same ones when I was kid,” Joseph said. “There’s been times in the playoffs where these fans have energized us.
“I think it was the Indiana series—we were down by like 17 and things were going really bad. We were all just looking around and seeing how much they were cheering. And then we were able to find that energy and win that game.”
At just 24, Joseph is still very much a young player in this league. But he’s been to the playoffs five times now, and to the conference finals four times. He’s seen firsthand how influential runs like these can be on young players, especially the ones like Powell and Valanciunas, who are the only regulars even younger than him.
“My first year as rookie I was fortunate enough to see and be in a situation with a team that got to this position. It’s great for experience. You know what to expect when you get here; you know what it takes to get here; you know the amount of work you’re going to have to put in,” Joseph said. “As a team, it brings you together even closer when you get this far. You’re this close to having an opportunity to play in the Finals. It makes you more hungry.”