Cleveland Cavaliers' James Harden, center, shoots between Toronto Raptors' Scottie Barnes (4), Jamal Shead (23) , RJ Barrett (9) and Jakob Poeltl during the first-round NBA basketball playoffs series in Cleveland on May 3, 2026.Sue Ogrocki/The Associated Press
The last time the Raptors were in Game 7, you may recall that things worked out for them. It ended in arguably the greatest single play in Toronto sports history. Very arguably, but arguably nonetheless.
These Raptors aren’t those Raptors.
Sunday’s game in Cleveland turned in the third quarter. What had been a see-saw sort of thing became more of a spinning teacups. The Cavs did the spinning. The Raptors spent a lot of time falling over.
There was no moment that sealed it, but one did encapsulate it. The Cavaliers were looking for another score. The ball spat back down the floor. Toronto’s Scottie Barnes and Cleveland’s Jarrett Allen chased it, side by side.
Both men were jostling, but Barnes was called for the foul. Replays showed it to be a very iffy call, but Toronto had already blown its coach’s challenge.
Toronto was in the penalty. Allen made his first free throw and missed his second. The ball bounced around amongst the Cavs, and eventually in.
What should have been Raptors’ ball turned into three Cleveland points. And so on and so forth. Allen was the star for Cleveland. Nobody was the star for Toronto.
The Cavs won 114-102. They advance to face Detroit.
If there’s any disappointment here, it isn’t in the Raptors’ performance.
Collin Murray-Boyles #12 of the Toronto Raptors dunks the ball against the Cleveland Cavaliers during Game Seven of the First Round of the NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs.Jason Miller/Getty Images
They got hammered in the first game of this series, and stared down in the second. At that point, close observers of the team were making plans for the sweep.
But against every expectation, that’s when Toronto showed up. Over the course of the next four games - barring one brilliant quarter from former Raptor/current Cavalier Dennis Schröder - the Raptors took control.
“We were close,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said afterward. “There is going to be a lot of stuff to reflect on and improve on going forward.”
In retrospect, most of the things that should go right in the playoffs did. The main one was the emergence of Barnes as an NBA force of the first rank. When Barnes is feeling it, he is as good as anyone in the game. Most middle of the pack teams are looking for a dominating star to orbit. This series proved that Toronto already has theirs.
Also, the things that could go right did as well. Fringe players - rookie Collin Murray-Boyles, Ja’Kobe Walter, Jamal Shead, Jamison Battle - became intermittent centrepieces.
You were left wondering what this series would have looked like if starting point guard Immanuel Quickley had been able to play, or if ostensible star Brandon Ingram had been anything close to the player Toronto thought they traded for.
Down two of their three biggest stars, the Raptors took the most expensive roster in the NBA right to the edge.
If there’s disappointment, it’s that the path forward looked to be clearing. Orlando almost eliminated the best team in the conference, Detroit, but choked the series away. Boston is gone. The Knicks look vulnerable. If you concentrated very hard, you could picture a reality where the Raptors squeezed through the East to make another NBA final.
The good news? That vision will still be on offer next year, and a lot more people will believe in it.
This wasn’t the transformative 2014 first round, where the Raptors under new GM Masai Ujiri took the heavily favoured Brooklyn Nets to seven games, but it was close. It will have the same effect on the fanbase - ‘Wait, are these guys for real?’
Getting ahead in the NBA when you’re starting from the middle of the pack is nearly impossible. Teams tank for years in the hopes of becoming genuine challengers. The practice is so pervasive that the league is considering radical change to current draft lottery rules.
Fans react as they watch the Toronto Raptors play the Cleveland Cavaliers during Game 7 outside Scotiabank Arena, in Toronto on May 3, 2026.Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press
Toronto didn’t do that. They were great for a moment, and then good, and then mediocre, and now good again. They skipped over the awful-to-experience-live portion of a rebuild. Barnes - a player who’s starting to look like a first-overall-level talent that Toronto got at the fourth pick - is the main reason for that.
Next year, there is a scenario where Barnes plus a resurgent Ingram and a healthy Quickley, along R.J. Barrett and the supporting cast, is an Eastern Conference dark horse. At their best, this is the team no other team wants to play.
In a weird sense, the Raptors were punished for winning the 2019 NBA championship. The city fell in love with them, and was looking to them for a dynasty. But then Kawhi Leonard dangled the club for weeks. By the time he left, the air had already started coming out of the hype balloon.
Then it was COVID and the Raptors were nowhere close to the team they’d just been. As they tend to do, people had gotten used to miracles. Averagely good play offended them. Within a couple of years, many fair-weather fans had moved on, leaving the team feeling flat.
They don’t feel flat any more. They seem edgy in the best possible way.
So while the Raptors didn’t end up beating Cleveland (again), they won in this series.