There was an NBA game played in Cleveland on Boxing Day, you just had to squint.
Then you had to pull up the flashlight on your phone -- but only after using the camera function to enlarge the fine print.
Like, yes, the Toronto Raptors were in uniform, and yes it counted in the standings; the game cheques were in US currency and the flight to and from Cleveland was via private charter.
But these weren’t really the Raptors, and it was only technically an NBA game.
Missing were 10 regulars due to COVID-19 protocols, tied with Atlanta for the dubious distinction of having the most players out in the Omicron-ravaged league.
And Toronto wasn’t missing just any 10. The Raptors were without their top seven scorers and eight of their top 10. The four players they did have available -- Yuta Watanabe, Chris Boucher, Svi Mykhailiuk and Dalano Banton -- had nine starts between them this season before Sunday.
They were joined by four hardship signees: DJ Wilson, Tremont Waters, Daniel Oturu and Juwan Morgan, added from the G League to help the NBA schedule keep stumbling along. All have NBA experience -- ranging from 30 games for Waters, a skilled but undersized point guard, to 142 for Wilson -- a first-round pick by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2017.
It was only when the final round of Covid screening came back at about 2 p.m. that the Raptors even knew for sure they would have the minimum eight players needed to play.
It was only then that the new Raptors met the existing Raptors, such as they are:
“I mean, we met the new four guys right before the game, like we met them on the bus on the way to arena,” said Watanabe. “And so, when we got here, we went through a couple of plays. And then usually like in the meeting right before the game we watch other team’s clips but, coach showed us our clips to, you know, make sure everybody kind of like feels like what [our] game is and like stuff like that. So that was a lot different from a usual game.”
It certainly was. The next time you see an eight-man roster walking through inbounds plays on the floor 80 minutes before the tip -- as the Raptors were on Sunday -- will be the first time. Or it could be Tuesday when the ever-evolving roster will be getting ready to host the Philadelphia 76ers.
“We’ve just got to go play. I don’t want to fill up their heads with too much,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse before the ball went up. He’s coached all over the world and prides himself on having seen a little bit of everything -- including a lost season in Tampa, Fla. last year -- but nothing quite like this. “What I do want to do is let them go out there and play. It’s a great opportunity for them to go out and shine and think about playing hard.”
The ghost Raptors did that, but even though they were matched up with a short-handed Cavaliers club they really had no chance. Cleveland shook off a slow start to pull away for a 144-99 win that was closer to a pre-training camp summer run than an NBA-calibre competition.
The Raptors narrowly avoided the largest margin of defeat (46 points) in franchise history.
Watanabe led Toronto with career highs of 26 points and 13 rebounds in -- yes -- a career-high 37 minutes. So that was positive. And Wilson -- who travelled from Oklahoma City to Las Vegas to Chicago to Los Angeles to Cleveland in the past week -- looked pretty sharp all things considered, as he provided 15 points, eight rebounds, four assists and four steals in his first 34 minutes of NBA basketball since May 5.
Should the game have been played? Small picture? No. The Raptors were doomed to fail.
Bigger picture? It seems like the NBA can play games without unduly putting their players at risk and the players union has signed off on it. Most of the league is fully vaccinated and boosted, and after two seasons that have been thrown off kilter -- competitively and financially -- everyone involved is eager to keep things more or less on track. There will be bumps though, and Sunday night was one of them.
“It’s a hard question to answer,” said Nurse when asked if the game should have gone on. “I think for me, I’m always trying to be part of the solution. We got a big problem here -- not just basketball, we’ve got a big problem – and like I said before the game, leaders make decisions and you try to ride with them, be positive and go do your job. And, OK, we had to take a pretty good loss tonight, we’ll bounce back, we’ll be OK. We’ll keep working, this group of guys will get better, we’ll get some meeting time and hopefully some practice time with 'em and things like that. We’ll be OK.”
Cleveland had eight players in protocols or conditioning after emerging from them, but the Cavs could still call on four of their top six scorers (excluding Colin Sexton, who was already out for the season with a knee injury) and five of their top nine in minutes played.
It’s meant that even as Cleveland has had to cope with a makeshift roster, the Cavaliers haven’t had their surge towards a potential home seed in the Eastern Conference interrupted in any significant way. The win was their seventh in the past eight games and improved their record to 20-13, leaving them a half-game behind the Miami Heat for fourth place.
The Raptors can only hope the NBA’s push to keep the season somewhat on schedule -- some allowances will have to be made for the three games Toronto has had postponed in the past 10 days, for example -- doesn’t derail their own ambitions.
“I mean, we couldn’t do anything after the Golden State game [last Saturday],” said Watanabe. “I mean, every time we go to the practice facility and get tested like, literally two or three new guys are getting tested positive and you know -- I hope I hope they are doing well -- but you know this past week, we had no practice, Like no workouts and stuff. So, I was just going to the gym getting shots by myself. That's what I was doing this past week.”
Through no one’s fault of their own, the lack of work showed. The Cavs shot 52.8 per cent from the floor and made 22 threes on 52 attempts. The Raptors led by one after the first quarter and Cleveland won the second quarter by 16 and the third by 23.
As Nurse said, it was a great example of why coaching defense in the NBA is so hard: without a sound system to deter them, NBA offences will make it look like a pick-up game.
The loss dropped the Raptors to 14-16 after they were pushing to get back to the .500 mark with a 5-2 record in December before the Covid follies struck.
On the bright side, the wave of positive tests that has swept through the league has created opportunities that many players deserved but otherwise might not have gotten, as Wilson proved.
“It’s been an eventful four to five days but I’m appreciative for the opportunity,” he said. “And I wouldn’t pass up on it.”
On the Cavs' side, their outbreak has provided a much-needed opportunity for Kevin Pangos, the 28-year-old from the outskirts of Toronto who interrupted a successful European career to realize his NBA ambitions, only to find playing time scarce in a deep Cavaliers backcourt.
“He’s been unbelievable as a person and as a professional. Every single day he comes in he works and stays after and gets more done,” Cavs head coach JB Bickerstaff said of Pangos before the game. “… Kevin has shown he can play at this level. He can run a team, orchestrate, make shots. He’s really crafty as a finisher in the paint and around the basket. He’s been a big part of the chemistry that we’ve been building here.”
Pangos didn’t waste his chance as he played 16 minutes and responded with six points and six assists on six shots without making a turnover as he set career marks for points, assists and minutes.
So that was a bright spot on a holiday game that was mostly shy of them. The Raptors will likely be spending the rest of the Christmas season trying to play amidst an ongoing and mostly losing game of ‘dodge the virus’.
“ I've been anxious,’ said Watanabe, who missed the first six weeks of the season with a nagging calf injury. “Like literally, like almost everybody getting tested positive. And I think I'm trying everything I can do to you know, be safe and healthy. But at this point, I feel like you know, almost there's nothing I can do. I felt like my teammates are also doing a great job. You know, staying at home, like eat well, sleep well, all kinds of stuff. I mean, at this point, I'm just kind of like a lucky guy not getting Covid right now. So, but I'm just keep continuing, you know, trying to be isolated as [much] as possible.
It makes for a marginal Christmas, that’s clear.
“I flew in here last night and I ate my food in my room by myself,” said Watanabe. “So that's a great way to spend time on Christmas.”
Onwards and upwards in 2022, we can all agree, and hopefully a return to good health and good basketball.
