You’d think the only change-ups being tossed around on this sports night of nights would be thrown at the Rogers Centre. Not true. Just down the road from where the Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays were playing, Dwane Casey threw his own little change of pace in winning Game 5 of the Toronto Raptors‘ series against the Washington Wizards.
And as Kelly Oubre Jr. noted, the eight fourth-quarter minutes for Jonas Valanciunas—his first of the series—had just introduced a significant wrinkle to things. The Wizards had no answer for him with the game in the balance. None.
“He’s a big body,” said Oubre Jr., the Wizards’ 22-year-old forward. “He does a great job altering shots and rebounding. Any time he’s in the post, he’s a threat. Marsh (Wizards centre Marcin Gortat) has to take that personally … just as we have to take all our matchups personally, and make sure our man doesn’t score on us.”
No playoff series, regardless of sport, seems to tilt one way or the other until the first home loss. That’s the case now, in this best-of-seven affair. It was, of course, pointless to ask anybody on the Wizards about their confidence level going home considering they tied this thing to begin with with a pair of home wins.
But needs must, right?
“If we sulk,” Oubre Jr. said, “we dig ourselves into a grave.”
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Truth is, there is a different feeling to this series than when the teams went back with the Raptors leading 2-0. At that point, there was a sense that the Wizards had played all their cards. The Wizards had a five-point lead three minutes into the fourth quarter before Valanciunas came in off the bench and grabbed five rebounds in a span of three minutes. This in a game in which the Wizards crushed Toronto on the boards 50-35, including 14-6 on the offensive glass.
There was a whiff of opportunity lost.
“A little bit,” said Bradley Beal, who had an invisible 20-point outing. “Up five, but there was a lot of basketball left. We were 5-for-26 from three, and still had a chance to win.”
Added Markieff Morris: “For sure it was a missed opportunity. To be that close at home against this team, it was there.
“We just missed some shots. We feel like we got a lot of good looks, especially down the stretch, but a lot of them didn’t fall. For the most part, we feel like we didn’t shoot it well, didn’t play a great game and still had an opportunity to win. They just made some bigger shots and some big momentum plays down the stretch.
Beal picked up an offensive foul nine seconds into the game and his 20-point performance was a mirage. He was a non-factor both defensively and offensively, particularly in the fourth, when his biggest contribution was giving Delon Wright way too much room and losing track of Kyle Lowry within a span of two minutes.
Beal had one basket in the fourth: the last one of the night. “He’s a star player,” head coach Scott Brooks said before the game. “And star players make the right play more than not.”
Not.
In fact, it was a missed, 15-foot, pull-up jumper by Beal that let Lowry roll in the go-ahead lay-up.
“We missed some good looks,” said Brooks. “You have to live with some of those shots and the ball just needs to keep moving. I think the ball became a little bit stagnant tonight down the stretch. We need to keep the ball moving.”
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Oubre Jr. was subbed out when the run started and came back in with the Raptors lead at six, taking Gortat’s spot. Oubre Jr. was a pest for most of the night, one of Brooks’ most effective players who frequently found himself getting the surprising benefit of 50-50 calls. He was 7-for-7 from the line, getting to the charity stripe more than any player on either team other than John Wall, who also had seven.
Unlike Games 3 and 4, the Raptors bench got the better of the Wizards and Oubre Jr. smiled and demurred when he was asked if he could figure out why a bench that essentially disappeared in Boston re-appeared on the Raptors home court.
“I don’t know … no comment,” he said. “I don’t want to say anything. Can’t answer that question.”
As Brooks noted, every game plan drawn up by every coach contains ‘negotiables’ and ‘non-negotiables.’
“Some things you have to live with, but some things are non-negotiable,” Brooks said. “And we gave up too many of our non-negotiable.”
It will be interesting to know which category Valanciunas fits into in Game 6.
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