CLEVELAND — We all watched LeBron James do something special Saturday night. He brought the ball up the floor with eight seconds remaining in a tied playoff game, took off on his left foot, and floated in an absurd bank shot to win a game. It was the latest iconic moment from a generational player.
The Toronto Raptors just happened to be on the other end of it. They all watched it too. Here’s how they saw it.
The coach
Dwane Casey watched from behind. He was standing at nearly half court, pointing at James and yelling at his players. He was seeing events unfold in the complete opposite way he wanted them to. James was driving up the floor with plenty of space. That wasn’t the plan.
The plan, as Casey drew it up during the timeout following OG Anunoby’s game-tying three moments earlier, was to trap James. Don’t let the Cavaliers get him the ball. If you’re going to get beat, get beat by anyone but him.
Casey put both Anunoby and Pascal Siakam on the floor, and had them shadow James prior to the inbounds pass. But James saw an opening and broke free. Anunoby and Siakam couldn’t recover. Anunoby stuck with James. Siakam chose to race back towards his own basket and keep an eye on Kevin Love.
“He split the trap and went 100 miles-an-hour down the floor and lost our guys. We just didn’t execute,” Casey said. “It was probably my fault that I didn’t make it clear that we wanted to trap him and get the ball out of his hands. We had it started in the backcourt and for whatever reason we let him out of the trap.
“He’s a great player and great players make great plays. That’s why we wanted to get the ball out of his hands and make somebody else make a shot. But, didn’t get it done. Just didn’t get it done.”
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The rookie
Anunoby watched from right in front of James. He was in the unenviable position of trying to contest the shot — trying to stop perhaps the greatest player of all time. Anunoby will now be on the cover of newspapers, websites, posters, programs, you name it — his left arm extended straight up, eyes wide and trained on James as he floated overhead, trying to get a hand anywhere near.
When the trap the Raptors set for James failed, Anunoby chased him to Cleveland’s baseline and then shadowed him up the floor. He dodged a pick from Love, he faced James up, he forced him out of the lane, he watched James dribble to his left. That’s what the scouting report tells you will happen.
“Just picking him up full court, make stuff difficult for him. That’s the main thing,” Anunoby said. “Just trying to make him take a tough shot.”
Anunoby had been doing it all night. He and Siakam played extremely combative defence against James throughout game 3, throwing themselves at a man who has at least 20-lbs on them. Whenever James set up in the post, whenever he tried to gain position on an inbounds play, Anunoby was hand-fighting, elbow-grappling, and sometimes borderline wrestling with the Cavaliers star. As the game wore on, Anunoby felt that all the jockeying was starting to tire James out.
“I think we were pretty physical, making catches tough, picking him up full court, just bumping him, stuff like that,” he said. “I feel we did a pretty good job with that.”
But there’s only so much you can do. James still scored 38, his sixth game of these playoffs with 32 or more. He’s still one of the game’s best ever players playing some of his best ever basketball. And he still made that shot.
As he left the Raptors dressing room for the midnight team bus, baggy camouflage hoodie draped over his torso, Anunoby still hadn’t gone back and watched the shot. Why would he? He knows what happened. And there isn’t anything anyone can do now. Maybe tomorrow.
“I’ll watch it,” Anunoby said. “And I’ll probably come up with something I could have done better.”
The potential help
C.J. Miles watched from the left corner. He was there, guarding Kyle Korver on the three-point line. It had to be the best seat in the house. James was right there. Flying past. Within arm’s reach.
Wait — if Miles was so close, why didn’t he try to get a hand on the ball?
“I mean, LeBron’s shot is way tougher than Kyle shooting the three in the corner,” Miles said. “So, like, I’m looking at where [James] is going. He’s shooting a one-foot floater from 15-feet with his body facing the crowd. There’s no need for me to help off Kyle Korver in that situation. If it’s a different shot and he’s got more of a rhythm to it or something, maybe I jump at him a little bit. But there’s no need. I felt like that was the smart thing for me to do at that point.”
This is the Sophie’s choice the Cavaliers force their opponents into. Late in close games, they surround James with four good shooters and put the ball in his hands. James is such a cerebral playmaker, so good at seeing the floor, that if you cheat even a little bit towards him off one of those shooters, chances are he’s firing a high-velocity pass directly to the spot you just abandoned.
If Miles helps off Korver, maybe James doesn’t take that ridiculous shot. Maybe he dumps the ball off to a wide-open Korver in the corner, a career 43 per cent three-point shooter with one of the highest percentage looks in the game.
“When I see where he jumps from, I’m thinking I can’t let it be a late pass out of his shot to Kyle. So, I just turned back to Kyle,” Miles said. “And as it leaves his hands, it’s just kind of one of those things. I can’t really see the angle that well for how it’s going to come off the glass. But it’s a shot that you would want him to take in that situation, you know? He made a great shot.
“I mean, they put you on the spot. There’s four three-point shooters on the floor and him. Those stand still guys, they’ve got a better chance at making that shot than the shot we had him take.”
The point guard
Kyle Lowry watched from the key. He’d completely abandoned JR Smith on the perimeter and placed himself under the basket to contest a potential James drive. He figured James was probably going to his left. He always goes left.
“He got to his spot,” Lowry said. “At that point, you’re just like, alright, OG, get a contest. Maybe we could have doubled him or made him go right. You know he’s going left.”
When that floater perfectly kissed the backboard and dropped, it fell right at Lowry’s feet. He immediately started pointing up at the clock.
“I thought there was still some time on the clock left. I didn’t want it to be real,” Lowry said. “Honestly, I wanted to have the chance to at least get a heave in. And try to make it.”
The officials reviewed the play. James had let the ball go with 1.5 seconds remaining, and arced it high enough that it would take exactly that much time to plummet towards the rim, eliminating any chance of a last-second Raptors prayer.
“There’s not much going through your mind,” Lowry said. “He made a tough shot.”
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The other point guard
Fred Van Vleet watched from the other side of the restricted area. He has a sprained right shoulder, but that didn’t stop him from using it to lean into George Hill with all his weight, reaching his left arm behind him awkwardly for leverage, trying to box out for the rebound.
When the shot dropped, VanVleet threw his arms down in disbelief and put his hands on his hips. He stood right where he was for a long moment, watching the Cavaliers celebrate to his right while his teammates left the floor. He couldn’t believe his team had forced James into such a difficult shot, and still got beat.
“I mean, hey, it was a two, fade away, one-legged,” VanVleet said. “Obviously in that position, best case scenario, you get the ball out of his hands. But the way the play broke down it was a tough, weird play.
“It is what it is, man. Give him credit. He made a tough shot.”
The star player
DeMar DeRozan watched from the bench. After finishing the third quarter a minus-23, with three bad turnovers and only eight points on 3-of-12 shooting, Casey decided he couldn’t trust his best scorer in the fourth, a quarter that would likely decide Toronto’s season. He told DeRozan to take a seat. He went in another direction.
DeRozan watched his team battle back without him. He watched his teammates fighting as hard as they have all series, maybe all playoffs, painstakingly cutting a 14-point deficit all the way down before tying the game with eight seconds to play. What does it feel like in that moment? Is it a hard thing to process?
“Extremely hard, extremely hard,” DeRozan said. “I never want to be over there watching. Especially the competitor that I am. I just want to be out there, helping my team win more than anything. It definitely sucks to be watching.”
DeRozan watched James’s shot from just about the baseline, red, long-sleeved warm-up top over his jersey. Jakob Poeltl, who didn’t play a minute in game 3, had his hand on DeRozan’s left shoulder. As the shot dropped, DeRozan was emotionless, turning away from Poeltl and beginning his walk towards the dressing room.
Later, he sat alone at his stall, phone in his hands, beige towel over his head and shoulders, as he stared blankly at the back of his locker and took long gulps of a chocolate protein shake.
“In the moment, it definitely sucks. Especially on top of us losing, you never want to have a [expletive] game like I had,” he said. “I was just hoping we’d win. Winning cures everything. That’s the only thing that crossed my mind. As long as we win, it cures anything. A bad night individually. Everything. I was just hoping for them guys to pull out a win.”
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