TORONTO – Up 3-0 in a playoff series for the first time ever, the Toronto Raptors will be looking to earn their first-ever series sweep on Sunday in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series with the Brooklyn Nets.
Outside of a Game 2 blip, the Raptors have been downright dominant against Brooklyn so far in their series, averaging 118.3 points per game while holding the Nets to 100.3 points per game in the series — the 18 points-per-game differential is the largest of any team in the playoffs so far.
Essentially, this Raptors-Nets series has gone exactly as many thought it would: The championship-contender Raptors easily handling a vastly overmatched and undermanned Nets squad.
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As such, heading into Sunday’s Game 4 you might believe the Raptors would look to take their foot off the gas a bit, given as that’s just human nature with the cushion they have built up and the obvious talent disparity between the two sides.
However, to think that would be folly and it indicates that you just don’t know what these Raptors are about.
“We play to win. You play your big guns early and you try to get it over,” said Raptors guard Fred VanVleet after Game 3. “The purpose of going 3-0 is so you can go 4-0. We’ve got to go out there and take care of business.”
VanVleet has been the Raptors’ most productive player in the post-season so far, averaging 25.3 points per game on 54 per cent shooting from the floor and a remarkable 54.8 per cent shooting from deep on a little over 10 three-point attempts per game.
He’s been raising his game steadily as the post-season has progressed, but if the rest of Raptors are to be believed, he won’t be the only Toronto player to see their game taken to another level during this playoff run. Through every game, even in the playoffs, the Raptors are continuing to find out more things about themselves.
“I think that’s a really huge factor in these runs,” said Raptors coach Nick Nurse before Game 3 on Friday. “You heard me say several times last year that the time of mid-April last year to mid-June, we were a lot different team, we were a lot better basketball team, we were learning a lot of things that playoff basketball presents you with learning opportunities and yeah, we’re working hard on that now.”
On Saturday, Nurse was named the 2019-20 NBA Coach of the Year, an accomplishment well deserved for leading the Raptors to the third-best record in the entire NBA before the season suspension – a time period of which all the NBA awards are being counted for – despite the Raptors being among the leaders for man-games lost.
The award, as tremendous an accomplishment as it may be, is still ultimately more just a feather in the cap for Nurse and the Raptors this season as they have their eyes on a greater prize.
Nurse and the Raptors understand that the stakes are higher for them this post-season than, perhaps, any playoff run before as the defending champs. Therefore, they remain highly motivated to continue to prove themselves, regardless of any accolades that may come their way.
“The good thing about this is we know we have something to lose,” said Toronto forward Serge Ibaka after Game 3. “We have something to lose if we lose and that’s really the thing that motivates us to stay focused, because we know we’re playing for something bigger. We have a chance, we believe in us, we have a chance, that’s one reason we cannot come here and play around. We cannot come here and just play well, we have to stay locked in as a team and try to get better and better every night.”
And by “every night,” Ibaka really did mean it. Even after a 25-point margin of victory, as was the case in Game 3, Ibaka pointed out that there’s still much to be gleaned from a game that many wouldn’t think there would be notes to take away from.
“You always try to do better, you always try to get better in this game,” Ibaka said. “After the game you always watch tape and you always try to figure out [ways to improve]. Even when we get a ‘W’ we always try to figure out a way to get better because we know the further we keep going in the playoffs, the more difficult the game is gonna be.”
This is a sentiment echoed by Nurse, who saw some things on the micro level he wasn’t entirely pleased with in Game 3, even if the game taken from a macro perspective was one he liked.
“I like the intensity we’re playing with, I think we’re taking most possessions seriously, right? Not really paying attention to the score, we’re playing defence with some intensity and trying to do the coverages and execute the game plan,” the NBA’s top coach this season said Friday night.
“I thought offensively tonight we made really good choices. I thought we could have probably made some more of those shots, especially the driving things that we just maybe didn’t quite put enough effort into at the end but it was the right shot to take within the sequence. So I was pretty happy with that in the game, so far, for the most part in the series.”
Nurse has talked all season long about the Raptors building towards a theoretical peak his team is looking to achieve, with each practice and each game played viewed as another step up the steep mountain towards this hypothetical summit.
The playoffs are no different, so whether the Raptors are facing a supposedly weaker opponent like the Nets in the first round or are facing a stiffer test in the form of the Boston Celtics or Philadelphia 76ers, the process never changes because it’s not much of a surprise what the Raptors are aiming for on the mountaintop.
“A championship in October. That’s what it looks like to me,” VanVleet said.
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