A team that has defined itself by its will to fight against unlikely odds – and more often than not succeeding — wasn’t going to go out easily.
There would be no towel tossing; no rush to slide out of the bubble when the hill got too steep.
You knew that, and more importantly they knew that.
“Listen, we love to compete,” said Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse before his team tipped off a must-win Game 6 in their second-round series against the Boston Celtics. “There’s our love and our joy right there, and it doesn’t get any more competitive than this. It’s a good team, we’ve gotta win to keep our season alive, so yeah, it’s gonna be awful hard work. We’ve gotta find the joy and love in that, for sure.”
They found the joy and the love. The work was there. They even put in overtime and then double overtime.
Their reward for their efforts? A 125-122 win through 60 minutes of high-tension hoops and a chance to do it all again on Friday night in Game 7, their season on the line once more.
For the longest time they couldn’t find a way around, over or through a stout Celtics defence that had stifled the Raptors all series and which proved the difference down the stretch of an elimination game. Toronto failed to score in the final 4:24 of regulation, allowing Boston to force the extra period by only scoring a pair of field goals – both dunks by Celtics centre Daniel Theis — as the Raptors were playing with a small lineup featuring OG Anunoby at centre.
But they forced their way through the smallest of cracks in the overtime with Kyle Lowry finally taking the lid off the basket with a jumper and Norman Powell knocking down a three and earning a pair of free-throws to put Toronto up two before the Celtics tied it at the line with 19 seconds to go. Powell had a chance to end it with a three at the end of overtime but his shot missed left.
He made up for it, though. Powell scored 10 of his 23 points in the second overtime, including a three-point play to put the Raptors up by four with 39 seconds remaining. The Celtics’ Jayson Tatum made it interesting as he responded with five quick points to cut the Raptors’ lead to one. They weren’t enough though, thanks to a Lowry turnaround with 11 seconds left that proved to be the key margin.
Fittingly. You don’t win in double overtime without help from all hands – the Raptors know that from their double-OT win against Milwaukee in the 2019 Eastern Conference Finals, when they were at risk of going down 3-0 in that series.
But they don’t get to overtime without another epic effort from Lowry – the constant in Toronto’s seven-years-long golden era — as he led the Raptors with 33 points under the heaviest pressure to extend the season for one more game.
The legend continues to grow, in other words.
Fred VanVleet had 21 points to supplement Lowry and Powell as Toronto shot 19-of-47 from three, a welcome improvement and necessity to keep up with the Celtics, who were 19-of-46 and were led by Jaylen Brown’s 31 points and Tatum with 29.
The Raptors were staring into the abyss after falling behind once again in the first quarter, but they didn’t let go. Lowry wouldn’t let them, but he got some help.
The Raptors grabbed onto the rope and pulled their hardest early in the second half, riding some late momentum from the second quarter. A great sign came when Marc Gasol – 0-of-3 in the first half and 0-of-11 from three in the series – hit a pair of triples sandwiched around a nine-point spurt by Fred VanVleet. That VanVleet burst included three free-throws after Marcus Smart was called for a flagrant for getting his foot under VanVleet’s ankle on a three-point attempt and then VanVleet hitting a three when the Raptors got the ball as part of the flagrant call for the rare six-point play. It was part of a 14-5 run that put Toronto up 70-64 on its way to an 81-77 lead to start the fourth quarter.
The series has often been defined by the first quarters – the team that had won the opening frame had won all five games, much to Nurse’s amazement.
“It’s hard to believe that they’re so important, but it seems to be that they are,” said Nurse. “I always think it’s a really long, 48-minute game that takes a lot of ups and downs and twists, and turns, and momentum turns, and all that kinda stuff, but it sure seems like in this series, for us anyway, that it’s critical.”
The telling visual then was concerning. Cameras captured Gasol walking off the bench in apparent frustration or even exasperation late in the first quarter after missing a wide-open layup, which came on the heels of a missed three, a missed jumper in the lane and losing a loose-ball battle at the rim that Tatum converted into a layup.
Defensively the Raptors created their share of problems for Boston as they held the Celtics to 30.8 per cent from floor, but they trailed 25-21 after the first quarter because Toronto shot 2-of-9 from three (a recurring theme) while Boston was 5-of-14.
While Gasol was walking, Ibaka was rolling. After some mild concern he wouldn’t be able to play due to an ankle sprain, the big man from Congo dropped three triples in the space of two minutes to keep the Raptors attached. Those bombs and a late flurry from Lowry – who scored 15 in the first half — allowed the Raptors to head into the half trailing only 52-48 thanks to an 8-0 run that was capped by a three from Powell – shades of things to come.
