TORONTO — Did he feel lucky? Was there a premonition? Maybe a sense that something was special was waiting for him at the end of a long night of playoff basketball.
Maybe a little bit. He got a new hairstyle for Game 6, his first elimination game at Scotiabank Arena. His first as a member of the Toronto Raptors. His first playing for the team he grew up rooting for.
“I figured that would bring me some luck,” said RJ Barrett.
Sure, we’ll go with that.
Whatever the source, Barrett’s bounce has saved the Raptors' season, earned them an unlikely 112-110 overtime win, and sends their first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers back to the southern shores of Lake Erie for Game 7 on Sunday.
It was the first game-winning three in the final two seconds of overtime to avoid elimination in 30 years, so it was bound to be memorable.
But how it actually went down? That will make it part of Raptors lore, not a bad thing for a kid who grew up in nearby Mississauga, Ont., and is so steeped in it he can discuss the finer points of Sonny Weems’ game.
His three-point attempt with 1.2 seconds left was launched from about three feet behind the three-point line, at the top of the arc, in a straight line to the rim. But it didn’t go down... not at first. At first, it went up. Way up.
“I had a front row to it. I was right there on the block,” said Raptors guard Ja’Kobe Walter. “As soon as I saw the shot go up and I saw it go in the air, it didn’t waver, it kind of just stayed over the basket. I was like, ‘Hold up, that might go in.’"
His teammates were hoping.
“Seeing that ball bounce up, seeing it bounce up there, (I was like), 'please,'” said Scottie Barnes.
Barrett had to reach to catch the last-second pass from Barnes, who had run out of real estate and was rapidly running out of time with the Raptors trailing by one, their first-round series against the Cavaliers hanging by a thread, a couple of blinks from heartbreak and a long summer.
In the tense, scrambled moments as the Raptors tried to plan their sideline out-of-bounds play with 10.9 seconds on the clock, Barrett had put a thought in Barnes' ear: “He already told me coming out on the court, before we (inbounded) the ball, and he was like ‘I got you, just trust me.’”
Nevertheless, Barnes had a plan of his own.
“Really, I was trying to score,” said Barnes, who ran over to his own side of half to catch the ball and give himself some room to survey the floor and some runway to build up speed. But the Cavaliers had five bodies inside the three-point line, hugging the paint.
They weren’t going to let Barnes have room for another one of his rambling drives that have caused them so much grief this series. “They did a good job of stopping me. They brought help,” said Barnes. “(So) I just trusted my teammate.”
That Barrett trusted himself is perhaps more telling. That anyone on the Toronto Raptors was willing to put their hands up to take a shot was notable. It had been a while since anyone had made a shot. Barrett had missed his last six.
For three quarters of basketball, the Raptors were nearly untouchable. The same formula that has worked for them so often since they started the series down 0-2 was working again. It was almost a perfect copy of how the game had flowed in Game 5 when the Raptors built up a meaningful early lead before crashing to earth in the fourth quarter with an offence that was all squeaks and creaks and no grease.
When they were rolling, the Raptors hounded the Cavaliers into 18 turnovers for 25 points, scored 20 fast-break points to the Cavs' six and got contributions from players that would be largely anonymous to anyone but the most ardent NBA fan.
Walter followed up his 20-point breakout in Game 5 with 24 points, five rebounds and three steals in 43 minutes in Game 6. Jamal Shead, starting in place of the injured Brandon Ingram (heel), hit a pair of crucial threes and hounded Cavs star James Harden (16 points, nine rebounds, nine assists) at every step. Rookie forward Collin Murray-Boyles popped off the bench for 17 points, seven rebounds, two steals and three blocked shots in a career-high 40 minutes. Brampton, Ont.'s AJ Lawson hit a pair of important threes in the third quarter as the Raptors pushed their lead as high as 15 points shortly after halftime and led 92-81 at the start of the fourth. Jamison Battle hit a pair of shots and commanded the Cavs' attention, worried the little-used wing would catch fire as he did in the fourth quarter of Game 3.
And the big boys came to play too. Barnes remained clearly atop the ‘best player in the series rankings’ — not nothing given the other team has Hall-of-Fame-bound Harden, soon-to-be three-time All-NBA selection Donovan Mitchell (24 points on 11-of-26 shooting) and Evan Mobley (26 points, 14 rebounds), Barnes’ draft-class rival who was All-NBA and defensive player of the year last season.
But Barnes was having the better night again. He had 25 points, 13 assists, three steals and three blocked shots before he got cut off in the paint and twisted himself to pass back to the open Barrett. Barrett — the leading scorer in the series — had 21 points and nine rebounds when he leaned in to make the catch.
But at that moment, the Raptors were in trouble. The 11-point lead they had started the fourth quarter was down to one with 5:28 to play. It wasn’t because the Raptors' defensive effort had lagged. The Cavaliers — one of the NBA’s most potent offences before they ran into the Raptors this series — only ended up scoring 23 points in the fourth, which Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic would sign off on any day.
It was the Raptors' offence that had gone brittle. They managed just 12 points in the final 12 minutes and shot 4-of-17 from the floor. They had scored just five points in overtime when Barrett put up his shot. After connecting on 11-of-27 threes in the first three quarters, the Raptors were 1-of-8 in the fourth quarter and overtime. The Raptors had a chance to win the game in regulation, but another awkward possession ended with Shead taking a difficult fallaway jumper that rimmed out.
The Cavs finally squeaked ahead when Mitchell snaked his way for a lay-up that put Cleveland up by two with 33.7 seconds left. Shead split a pair of free throws, and the Cavs had the ball and a one-point lead with 23.9 seconds to play.
The Raptors needed the ball back.
But it’s not like generating turnovers is something foreign for the Raptors. It’s been their lifeblood all season and the difference in this series. They just needed one more. In this case, Lawson forced Cavs guard Dennis Schroeder to make a rushed pass to Mobley. Murray-Boyles was on him in an instant and swiped the ball off his leg and out of bounds, giving the Raptors the possession they had to have.
And now Barrett had his chance.
When Barrett regained his balance after leaning in to catch Barnes’ pass a few seconds later, he looked up to the seven-foot Mobley rushing at him.
Barrett had no time to adjust, so he let it fly. It had perfect arc and perfect line, but it was a touch heavy. It hit the back rim and bounced. It didn’t seem like it would ever come down. It was about 10 feet in the air before gravity started doing its work.
All you could do was watch.
There wasn’t a person in the building who wasn’t thinking of the four bounces Kawhi Leonard’s series-winning shot took against the Philadelphia 76ers in 2019.
Even Barrett was. He remembers watching the iconic shot — ‘The Shot’ — on a couch in California with some friends when he was training for the 2019 draft.
For Rajakovic, the suspense from the current version was killing him. He said he had a good feeling about Barrett making a big play in the build-up to the game. “Call me crazy, call me psychic, but I saw this one coming tonight, talking to assistant coaches before the game, and I was planning ATO (After Timeout) plays for end of the game to get RJ in those situations. And it's surreal.”
But in the moment, watching from the sidelines, the Raptors' season hanging in the balance? “I know it was a half of a second, but it looked like an eternity over there to be honest with you,” said Rajakovic. “And I was just like hoping for him, for this city, for everybody, for all the players that is gonna drop down. And thank God it did.”
Cleveland perspective: "Sometimes the basketball Gods aren’t with you,” said Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson.
Barrett never stopped believing. “I knew it was good because it went straight up,” he said. “Like, if it goes straight up, you’ve got a chance.”
After it dropped, the loudest roar at Scotiabank Arena in seven years was directed at the person who grew up dreaming of playing for the Raptors and has had his dream come true in spectacular fashion.
“To do it in the city where he grew up in, that’s truly amazing,” said Barnes, who picked up his 14th assist on the play, tying the Raptors playoff record. “The way that shot went in, and when we needed it most, he showed up. That’s big time. Yeah, it’s hard to even wrap your head around it.”
Fortune favours the brave, the saying goes. Barrett’s big shot went down because he was willing to put it up. “I think the biggest part of it is being a competitor,” he said. “But also, I really don't care if I missed a shot. I'm willing to live and die on me taking that shot. I think when you have that confidence, you know, good things will happen.”
