Scottie Barnes, Raptors run out of road in season that exceeded expectations

CLEVELAND – In the dark hallways of Rocket Arena, the word was spreading.

The playoffs can change things. Shape opinions. Shade reputations. At the highest levels, they can build legacies and cement careers. Sometimes they can ruin them. 

But in the wee hours after the crowd roar had died down and the “USA” chants had dissipated, and the Toronto Raptors dressing room was thinned out, you could hear it. 

“Scottie Barnes, man, he’s a dog. He’s an animal, that was like some Kawhi (Leonard) stuff.”

The speaker was Dennis Schroeder, the veteran Cavaliers guard and – briefly – a former Raptor. Schroeder had an uneven ride through his 13 NBA seasons, but he knows dogs, recognizes competitors, and he’s never worried about telling the truth. 

Tell me more: 

“He did a hell of a job, man,” said Schroeder, taking a minute outside the victorious Cavaliers dressing room before connecting with his wife and family. He was happy to talk about his former teammate in the moments after his Cavaliers outlasted the Raptors 114-102 in the seventh game of their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series. “What he was doing on Don and James (Cavs star guards Donovan Mitchell and James Harden), to be a superstar and lead on the defensive end, the offensive end is just amazing.

“I mean, I knew he was already a dog, but what he showed me this series was unbelievable, and sky's the limit for him. I mean, it was impressive,” said Schroeder. “Like I was on the bench just watching how he brings the energy, how he brings all these other guys' confidence level up, that they’re making those wide-open shots and playing great defence. But Scottie was a big-time man. It showed me again how great and how special Scottie Barnes is, for sure. “

Professional sports is the winning business. As former Blue Jays slugger Josh Donaldson put it so perfectly — “it’s not the try-hard league, it’s the get it done league.”

And so by that harsh standard, the Toronto Raptors season is over, and there’s no cause to celebrate. Only one team wins the last game of the season, and the Raptors are one of 16 teams that made the playoffs that won’t be able to say that. 

But if the lens gets pulled back a little bit, and you acknowledge that winning the ultimate prize or even competing for it in a meaningful way is extraordinarily difficult and likely requires a multi-year process, the Toronto Raptors can say with some confidence they took an important first step this season as they jumped from 30 regular-season wins last season to 46 this year. 

And you could be even more confident in saying the biggest strides, coming at the end, as they fought back from being down 0-2 to the favoured Cavaliers and forced a seventh game, one in which they acquitted themselves admirably. 

“That’s why I’m saying I'm really, really proud of this group and the fight they showed, not just in the game tonight, but in the whole series and the whole season,” said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic. “I think that we created a culture that we are one of the hardest playing teams in the league, we put a lot of pride in that, and our main guys, they love to play that way. They are embracing to play that way.”

No lies told. The Raptors established a style of high-paced, unselfish basketball on offence — their franchise-record 29.5 assists were third in the NBA, which is impressive for a team that was 16th in effective field goal percentage; tellingly, the Raptors led the NBA in potential assists. Defensively, they swarmed the ball and challenged for deflections and steals, hoping to drive offence in transition. They finished fifth in defensive rating. More importantly, it translated: the Raptors lead the playoffs in points scored in transition with 27.2 per game and were first in points scored off opponents’ turnovers at 22.0

Even on Sunday, the Raptors could say with confidence they were the better team through the first two quarters, despite the game being tied at half. The Raptors had leads of 10 points in the first quarter, avoiding the home-team avalanche that can end an elimination game almost before it starts. They led by nine points in the second quarter, and there was more than a smattering of boos directed at the Cleveland bench, reflecting the pressure on a veteran, expensive, win-now team that has flamed out in the second round of the playoffs for two straight seasons. 

Things unravelled after that. The Cavaliers won the third quarter 38-19. Suddenly, it was Cleveland applying the defensive pressure and the Raptors coughing up the turnovers – five of their 14 coming in the 12 minutes after halftime. Combine that with 5-of-20 shooting and surrendering nine of the 20 offensive rebounds Cleveland had on the night (compared to seven for the Raptors), and all the ingredients were there for a game getting away from them, and a series and a season coming to a close. 

But what means the most after 82 games and, in particular, seven playoff games, is that the Raptors have a superstar in Barnes.

No team can get very far without one. Barnes has been projected as one of the Raptors leading candidates since he was drafted fourth overall in 2021. But the progress has been uneven at times. That he’s not a natural scorer makes the fit awkward. He has lapses. Even this season, his fifth and best, and one that will end with him earning first-team all-defence recognition, there were questions about Barnes' ceiling: Can you lead a team deep into the playoffs while averaging 18.1 points per game as Barnes did in the regular season?

Through a seven-game crucible against a quality opponent with game plan dictated on making his life difficult, Barnes proved that he has more to give, more to discover. 

In a series featuring a seven-time all-star and (soon-to-be) three-time all-NBA selection (Mitchell), a nine-time all-NBA selection and future Hall of Famer (Harden), and last year’s Defensive Player of the Year (Evan Mobley), Barnes was unequivocally the best player.  He averaged more points (24.1) than Mitchell, more assists (8.6) than Harden, and had more blocks (11) and steals (eight) than Mobley. 

For perhaps the first time — or at least the first time for an extended period of important basketball — the vision that Rajakovic has for Barnes as a future MVP candidate seemed less hyperbolic and more realistic. 

Barnes has changed the math on his potential, and the trajectory of the Raptors' future, and the best could yet be to come.

“I expect more from Scottie. Scottie’s gonna bring more. Scottie right now, the way he’s playing, he’s at 60 per cent of the player he’s gonna be in two or three years,” said Rajakovic after Game 4. “Scottie’s gonna be one of the best players in the league. He’s already one of the best players in the league. How much he cares about winning is pushing him forward to do whatever it takes to win the game.”

Crucially, Barnes isn’t shying away from it. He’s running to it. The Raptors were without their starting point guard, Immanuel Quickley (hamstring), for the entire series and missed Brandon Ingram (heel inflammation) for most of Game 5 and all of Games 6 and 7. Barnes stepped up.

“My team really, they needed me out there. Every time I stepped on the floor, I was just trying to be as aggressive as I can. Run every single time in transition, no matter who was around, I was just trying to attack the rim, create pressure,” he said after putting up 24 points, nine assists and grabbing six rebounds in Game 7. “It was just creating so many options, whether it was kick out threes, whether it was hitting people in a dunker, that aggressiveness going to the rim and looking for my shot, just opened up everything. That aggressive mindset just put me in a great position. I know I can play with that force every single time. I know how good I am defensively. Just trying to be aggressive on both ends.”

It was Barnes' idealized, dominating in all facets. It’s a huge task; a job open only to the most talented of “dawgs.” Barnes is qualified.

“I think he kind of shut up a lot of talk, you know?” said RJ Barrett, who had a breakout series of his own, hitting an iconic game-winning three in overtime of Game 6 and tying Barnes for the Raptors' scoring lead with 24.1 points per game and adding seven rebounds and four assists, his otherwise impressive efficiency hampered by a 9-of-25 night in Game 7.  “I'm happy he was able to do that because, I mean, man, that's a winning player. Just because he's not a guy that comes out and tries to get 30 (points) every night does not mean that he's not one of the best basketball players in this league. I think he showed and proved that he can score if he wants to, but on this team, especially when we're all healthy, a lot of shots to go around, and he plays winning basketball. But like I said, if he needs to do it, he can do it and do it efficiently. 

Yes, the Raptors lost Game 7 and lost the series to the Cavaliers 4-3.

But some important things happened over the preceding six months.

Perhaps the most important was that the Raptors became relevant again beyond their dyed-in-purple hard-core fans. The post-championship years have felt directionless. It’s in some ways an inevitable by-product of the near-decade of sustained success that kicked off with “(expletive) Brooklyn” in 2014 and DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry leading the Raptors out of their post-Chris Bosh swoon and into the playoffs.

But this season, and particularly this series (especially the last five games of this series), have opened some eyes and answered some questions.  When was the last time Charles Barkley was holding fort on the Raptors on Inside the NBA, the iconic panel show now on ESPN?

There are plenty of reasons for that. Rajakovic proved his playoff mettle as a head coach. Rookie Collin Murray-Boyles followed up an impressive regular season with some jaw-dropping performances in the playoffs. (More Schroeder: “He wrecked us in three or four games, a rookie? Come on.”) Barrett had his best moments as Raptor.  Youngsters Ja’Kobe Walter and Jamal Shead showed signs of being closer to the level than what would have been expected a year ago.

And there are concerns to be sure. Jakob Poeltl, the 30-year-old starting centre under contract for four more years, followed up an uninspiring regular season with a concerning post-season where Murray-Boyles was often the preferred option at centre. Before he got hurt, Ingram was a shadow of his regular-season self under the Cavaliers' intense defensive focus. In the end, what undid the Raptors in the series was the same problem that plagued them so often in the regular season: an offence that stalled out in the fourth quarter, although it happened in the third quarter in Game 7.

The work is incomplete, and it’s fair to wonder, given the Raptors salary cap situation and contractual obligations, how meaningfully the roster can be improved in the off-season.

But the challenges became easier and more worthwhile to take on because the Raptors learned definitively that Scottie Barnes is a dawg, a two-way superstar.

The word is out.