The Raptors have turned their series with the Cavaliers on its head

Open this photo in gallery:

With eight seconds left in Sunday’s game and his team going under for the count, Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell chased his own rebound into the Toronto crowd. He never had a chance at the ball, but he did get two rows deep, ploughing over bodies.

As the Cavaliers’ star was untangling himself from a knot of Toronto one-per-centers, first-year Raptors’ player Collin Murray-Boyles rushed to begin flexing over him.

“I just want everyone to feel that energy out there,” Murray-Boyles said afterward.

Rookies showing up vets, dogs and cats living together – that’s how this series is going.

Toronto won the game 93-89. This thing was supposed to be over by now. Now, tied 2-2, it feels like it’s just starting.

Cathal Kelly: For the rich and (occasionally) the poor, live sports has become a tale of two fanbases

When you’re trailing by seven with three-and-a-half minutes to go and pull it out, you can’t call that a bad win. But give the Raptors credit – they tried.

Toronto shot 13 per cent from three-point range on Sunday. If a group of professionals stand with their backs to the basket, shooting blind over their heads, they should hit more than 13 per cent of their shots. Overall, the Raptors shot less than 32 per cent from the field.

Those aren’t terrible numbers. They’re worse than that. They represent the lowest shooting percentage by a winning team in the NBA playoffs since 1969.

Ahead of the game, Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson described the level of play thus far as an “Olympic-style product.”

Which Olympics is that? The one they hold under water?

Open this photo in gallery:

It’s not so much that the Raptors are doing more, it’s that Atkinson’s team is all of a sudden doing much less. Mitchell (6-for-24) is part of the problem. The other half of the duo, James Harden, is another. With Harden, it’s never the numbers. It’s how he goes about getting them.

Early in the fourth, when you still would have put money on the Cavs, Cleveland’s Jaylon Tyson bulled his way to the basket, getting fouled in the process.

Tyson, a young role guy whose career is just getting going, popped up and began slapping hands with teammates. Until he got to Harden, who screamed at him for not passing off. It’s not teamwork as I recognize it, but I wasn’t raised in Ohio. Maybe things work differently on the chillier side of Lake Erie.

Over on the other bench, this Toronto team seems to actually like each other. It can be a bit over the top – the pre-game conga line by the subs has a strong smell of high-school theatre – but it doesn’t come off contrived.

When the Raptors rush in to help up a teammate who’s been decked, you never see one or two guys lollygagging. They all hop to, whether it’s Scottie Barnes laying stretched out on the floor or the 10th man.

Generally speaking, when a team has come back down two games to none and tied it, you would say they have the momentum. Is that what Toronto has? From a technical perspective, they are playing awful basketball. It’s gotten to the point where the Cavs don’t even bother guarding the Raptors’ best scorer on paper, Brandon Ingram, whenever he backs over the three-point line. They are convinced that given a free working permit, Ingram will brick up a whole house. He was better than he has been on Sunday, which tells you how bad he’s been.

So what are the Raptors working with right now? Self-belief? Cohesion? Or is it that they don’t know enough to know they don’t know enough. Whatever it is, something’s working.

Their goal this year was to make the playoffs and, once there, not look like they paid someone off for the privilege. That mission has been accomplished. They have stood and slugged with a serious NBA contender. Were they to lose now, no one would say they had failed.

Open this photo in gallery:

That’s a dangerous point for both teams.

From Cleveland’s perspective, they must win game five on Wednesday, while the Raptors may win. If they flag early, their own crowd will get on them. That town will turn on you like a rattlesnake. Given their history, they have good reason to.

From Toronto’s perspective, a whole new world is suddenly opening up to them. They have Cleveland on the ropes. They know they can shoot better than 32 per cent, because every team in basketball, including many grade-school house league teams, can can be better than that.

Across the playoff bracket from them, Orlando is now one game up on the best team in the East this year, Detroit. Toronto would have home court advantage against the Magic. They played them twice in Toronto this year, and killed them both times.

Then it’s who? Boston? They look good, but not that good. Not as good as they used to.

Is there a possible future where Toronto could make an absolutely out-of-nowhere run in the East?

That’s how a team that has spent the last five seasons boring everyone but the diehards to sleep becomes this year’s Toronto Blue Jays (since it’s becoming clear that the Blue Jays don’t want the job).

Now, the Raptors get to indulge themselves in two days of hype. Since this particular group has never felt that while together, there’s no telling how they react to it.

“We don’t have any prejudice that next game is going to be this way or that way,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said Sunday.

I think it’s fair to guess this isn’t going to all of a sudden turn into golden-age Lakers vs. Celtics. And that’s not a problem.

Everybody loves a team that wins ugly, though you don’t often associate the two things – winning and ugly – with basketball. Maybe the Raptors, operating ahead of their own schedule, can be the team that does things wrong that end up turning out right?