On Thursday, Scottie Barnes became the first Raptor to record a 30-point, 10-assist and five-rebound game in the playoffs.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Three games into their first playoffs in a while, the Raptors perfected their winning formula on Thursday night. They have to be as good as they can be, and Cleveland has to be terrible. As long as Toronto can keep that up, they’ve got a chance.
This was one of those victory has a thousand fathers situations. Scottie Barnes had the best playoff game of his career (33 points). RJ Barrett was metronomic from three-point distance (6-for-8). Rookie Collin Murray-Boyles (22 points) almost made you forget that Brandon Ingram is still here and wearing a uniform. And ninth man, Jamison Battle, had an Alec-Baldwin-in-Glengarry-Glen-Ross-level cameo (+20 in 16 minutes).
Meanwhile, Cleveland’s lineup came out like a bunch of guys who’d just heard that The Keg runs a 10-for-1 steak deal on Thursdays before 11. It was only the Cavaliers’ rebounding advantage that kept the score embarrassing, rather than truly humiliating. The Raptors won 126-104.
“I thought that all guys had only one thought in their mind – how to win a game,” Toronto’s head coach Darko Rajakovic said afterward.
Fair enough. Let’s see them do it again.
Four years is a long time in sports. You’d kind of forgotten how impressive the Raptors’ live environment becomes in the postseason. Though it was a work night, a late start and a poor prospect, the Raptors still filled the square outside the arena. It doesn’t take much positivity to get this fanbase jumping.
Which makes this moment a backyard trampoline for the Raptors. Cleveland went all in at the trade deadline on this season. They have to win. Toronto doesn’t have to get anywhere close to call this outing a success.
The first marker was stopping the Cavaliers’ consecutive playoff winning streak over the Raptors – 12 games, stretching back to 2016 and the LeBron James era. Had they lost on Thursday, it would have been a new NBA record.
The second marker is taking two in a row. Two at home puts this team in a different neighbourhood. Now they aren’t just talking to the die-hards. They’re starting to lure a few bandwagon jumpers.
Collin Murray-Boyles's 22 points and eight rebounds were key in the Raptors' desperately needed win against the Cavaliers.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
That is the real key to success in this market. Given half a chance, Toronto will believe anybody has a shot.
Think of all the people who couldn’t have given you directions to the Rogers Centre on Oct. 1 of last year, and how many bled Blue Jays blue a month later.
Toronto doesn’t expect its teams to win (obviously). All it asks is that they give the impression, however briefly, that winning is theoretically possible. Two in a row in a series you were supposed to get swept in qualifies.
That makes Sunday’s Game 4 a genuinely big deal. Or as big a deal as basketball has been in this town since the glory years.
This is where the Toronto advantage comes into play. The Cavaliers will still think they have this one in the bag. They have two nights off in the city and a dollar exchange advantage that makes night life feel like its free. I’m sure that if Cavs’ coach Kenny Atkinson could run practices at midnight, he would, but he can’t. Sunday’s game starts at 1 p.m. ET, which means a couple of Cavs probably won’t bother going to bed first. They can sleep on the charter home.
If Toronto wins that game – regardless of what comes next – this postseason was a success.
“This is super important for us,” Rajakovic said. “I think in the long run this is going to make us a lot, lot better.”
He said that before they’d played Thursday’s game. He was talking about things like getting used to the subtle differences in playoff officiating. Clearly, he was grasping.
A few hours later, that sentiment had started to make sense. If the Raptors can steal the advantage from an objectively better, more established team that thought they had it won already, and do it for a stretch of time? That’s something you could build on.
One hopeful sign is that Ingram was invisible again. On Thursday, he suffered the ignominy of being shuffled on with the subs during the final minutes in the hopes of building his confidence ahead of Game 4. He didn’t look very confident.
But he doesn’t need to be Kevin Durant to help his team. He just needs to be some reasonable facsimile of his regular-season self.
Were that to happen – the old Brandon Ingram-Jamison Battle iron-fist-in-the-iron-glove tandem – then Toronto’s cooking with gas.
It wouldn’t do anybody any good to start thinking about winning the series. That’s a few days off yet.
Right now, the marching order is to treat Game 4 like it’s a Game 7. Because, based on where the Raptors were before last night’s game and where they are after it, it kind of is.