WASHINGTON – Game 7s are a headache. And who needs one?
The Toronto Raptors certainly don’t. Life’s too short and they have ambitions of having their post-season run long.
Much better to do it the easy way – at least by the standards of historical Raptors torture tests.
Their impressive 102-92 win over the Washington Wizards in their Game 6 close out of their rugged first-round series means the roll-the-dice nature of a Game 7 and all the stress and anxiety they know so well is something they won’t have to deal with.
This is a team that is all grown up, taking care of business.
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They came into Capital One Arena and treated it like a Tuesday night in February – which is to say they played their all-bench unit, bolstered by the return of Fred VanVleet, from injury for huge minutes down the stretch against the Wizards, something that goes against the post-season grain, where rotations are supposed to get tighter and older.
Raptors head coach Dwane Casey promised he would buck tradition and did with the stakes high and was rewarded with some of the most decisive minutes in a heart-in-your-throat kind of game that reflected how tough a first-round out the talented No. 8 seeded Wizards presented.
DeMar DeRozan was good, Kyle Lowry was very good, but the bench was fantastic. With VanVleet back in the fold everything seemed to fit.
While the Wizards were running John Wall and Bradley Beal into the ground – they played 43 and 41 minutes, respectively – the Raptors’ big guns were on a strictly-as-needed plan.
“I think John said he was tired last game,” said Lowry. “Sometimes the stars play more minutes in the playoffs. Tonight our bench did a great job of just playing. I played 31 minutes, DeMar played 33. In a playoff game, a closeout game, you wouldn’t expect your two backcourt guys to do that, but that’s how our team is built. On any given night, our bench can do that.”
VanVleet – who separated his right shoulder in the last game of the regular season and played all but three minutes in the series – only put up four points and four assists in 24 minutes Friday night but he settled everything down.
Suddenly it was like old times where the bench – who led the NBA in net rating in the regular season at plus-8.3 but were 14th out of 16 playoff teams through the first five games of the series at minus-9.9 – was helping the Raptors win games.
There was VanVleet running the break; Pascal Siakam finishing and Delon Wright being clever, slipping in for steals.
Even as the game got tight Casey was sure enough that he didn’t bring back DeRozan until the 3:31 mark of the fourth quarter. By then the Raptors were up six with Lowry and Jonas Valanciunas having already joined the bench mob.
And DeRozan was as pleased about it as anyone. A year ago the Raptors needed every one of his 32 points in 41 minutes to survive a roller-coaster of a close out Game 6 win against the Milwaukee Bucks.
He still led the Raptors in scoring in the series, but with the series on the line in Game 6 he didn’t have to. It was a very ordinary night, by his standards – 16 points on 18 shots with four assists. He only had one field goal in the fourth quarter, but it didn’t matter.
“It’s big, especially with the dynamic of how we could do it,” he said of the bench’s contribution. “[Lowry] could have a big night, I could have a big night, and the nights that we don’t, we’ve got the bench to go out there and win the game for us as well. So any given night, whether it’s a closeout game, Game 1, I think we`re just capable of showing so many different elements we didn’t have last year.”
It was the perfect win for the Raptors season – whatever it took, whoever it took, no egos allowed.
Casey deserves a nod – Wizards head coach Scott Brooks said he was his choice for coach of the year – for coaching freely, with supreme confidence and, with VanVleet back, a full tool box with which to mix and match as the situation required.
“Getting our second unit back. It gives us a little bit of wholeness,” said Casey. “I’m still looking for that manual that says that you can’t play the second unit. They’re too young, they’re too this, they’re too that. As long as they’re productive, they’re going to play. They’ve been good to us all year. And they closed it out for us tonight.”
The Raptors bench out-scored the Wizards bench 34-20 and were a collective plus-52 for the game, led by 11 points from Siakam who thrived with VanVleet back.
The win advances Toronto to the second round for the third straight year where they will meet the winner of the Indiana Pacers-Cleveland Cavaliers series. Their Game 7 goes Sunday, meaning the Raptors will – for the first time ever – head into the second round (likely starting on Tuesday) with the advantage of a few days’ rest and preparation time against whoever they play.
The effort was a continuation of their play last season when the Raptors finally won a series without going the full seven games.
“I think we just got tired of Game 7s. And the headache that comes with that,” said DeRozan before the game. “But understanding the importance of a Game 6, being able to close it out. I think we at a point now where we really understand the importance of it.”
In the space of one six-game series it’s like their young bench grew up, delivering their best game on the road when it was most needed.
DeRozan allowed that performing on the road in a building where the Wizards are 8-0 over the past two post-seasons before last night was a tall order for some of his youthful supporting cast but he predicted a breakout before the game.
“I think it’s just a natural type of thing, you know? You will walk around home in your [underwear] but that don’t mean you will go to your friend’s house and feel comfortable doing the same thing. … [But] we got a couple of games here already and we struggled and now we understand what we have to do and to be better at. So tonight should be a great opportunity.”
The Raptors grabbed it and didn’t let go fighting back from an early 12-point hole in the first quarter and a 10-point gap in the second to go into the half down 53-50. They trailed 78-73 heading into the fourth but a three by VanVleet at the 10:21 mark of the fourth tied the score for the first time in the game and a pair of free throws by Jakob Poeltl put Toronto up one at the 9:03 mark. The Raptors never trailed again.
The win was part triumph, part relief. It avoided the ‘headache’ of a Game 7, for starters, but also avoided the Raptors – after a near perfect season – from becoming just the sixth team in NBA history from heading into the uncertainty of an elimination game trying to avoid becoming just the sixth No. 1 seed in NBA history to fall to a No. 8, and just the second to do it after leading the series 2-0.
Even facing the possibility of that kind of stigma after a season where the Raptors did almost everything right seemed unfair.
Now they advance to the second round with a chance to find out how special a team they really are. They get there displaying exactly the kind of team they’ve been all year when they didn’t get headaches, they gave them.
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