It was a warm, welcome, even beautiful sight.
Before the ball went up, two teams stood in a circle, arms joined, heads bowed as The Star-Spangled Banner played. Competitors, but for the moment, brothers in arms.
That was the picture from Phoenix where the Toronto Raptors were being hosted by the Suns after yet another edition of one of the strangest 24 hours anyone’s ever seen.
It started with the news Tuesday evening that a Kenosha, Wisc., police officer would not face charges in the shooting that left Jacob Blake paralyzed this past summer.
It was video of the Blake shooting in late August that proved to be the tipping point during the NBA restart, the moment when the conversation around Black Lives Matter and the social justice protests following the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis required action.
The Milwaukee Bucks refused to play their first-round playoff game against the Orlando Magic, prompting a wave of protests and tributes across sports. It briefly appeared that the NBA season would be over. Play only resumed after a number of pledges from the league to join the players in pushing for more social change were earned.
The news that the officer who fired his weapon seven times into Blake’s back – the prosecutor’s office argued that because he was resisting arrest and reaching for a knife in his car, the officer was unlikely to be convicted – wasn’t going to face trial, hit hard.
“Man, I’m frustrated,” said Raptors guard Norm Powell. “It makes you feel like the work that you’re doing is not enough. The outcries and things from everybody around the world coming together over these issues and topics aren’t being heard. You know, when the officers that are in charge of protecting us and keeping us safe aren’t held for the responsibilities of physical abuse or aggressive aggression when it’s not needed, it’s tough. Who keeps them in check when they cross the line?”
Around the time that Powell was speaking Wednesday afternoon, images began to emerge from Washington D.C. of pro-Trump insurrectionists breaching the U.S. Capitol Building, damaging property, sending members of congress into lockdown. It got more shocking as the protesters were able to leave peacefully after a few hours, escorted to the door, without seeming consequence.
“I find it incredulous that people were walking down the hallways. I can’t believe they could do that almost anywhere, let alone the Capitol Building,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “I have no idea where the security breaches and things like that [were].
“It seemed incredibly dangerous for a lot of our high-profile elected officials that are in that building. It seems like, never in your wildest dreams do you think people could you just walk in there and start walking down the hallways and do what they were doing. It seems, like, unfathomable to me.”
Unfathomable also, given the level of heavy handedness that law enforcement showed Black Lives Matter protesters over the course of the summer, as Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers pointed out:
“Can you imagine today, if those were all Black people storming the Capitol, and what would have happened?” Rivers told reporters. “That, to me, is a picture that’s worth a thousand words for all of us to see.”
And it doesn’t seem to be changing.
“I think everybody hoped that with the start of a new season there’d be maybe some renewed hope, and then with the calendar turning to the new year, there’s another cause for some renewed hope,” said Nurse. “And here we are just a few days into this season and a few short days into this year, and we’re staring right back into the same issues that prompted all the activism.
“So, I don’t know what to say other than we need to, again, all do better, keep plugging away at it, and do whatever we need to do, activism-wise. We’ve gotta stand up and be heard. Whatever that means here going forward, that’s what we need to do.”
The Raptors and the Suns eventually played. There were no cancellations or postponements league wide. A number of teams took a knee for the anthem; the Raptors and Suns joined arms.
And then they went to work and for the Raptors at least there was a repetitive feel there too as they dropped their sixth game in seven starts so far this season, and their first on a four-game west coast road trip, 123-115.
The Raptors trailed the entire second half but were able to cut a 15-point Suns fourth quarter lead to six twice in the final minutes but couldn’t get over the hump. Pascal Siakam led all scorers with 32 points – his highest total since he put up 33 in Phoenix in March of last season. He was supported by Kyle Lowry’s 24, Fred VanVleet’s 13, while Powell chipped in 13 off the bench. But outside of that it was sparse as starting centre Aron Baynes was scoreless for the second-straight game and the rest of the roster contributed just 13 points.
Meanwhile, the Suns got 42 points from their bench and shot 21-of-40 from three, off-setting the Raptors, who shot 14-of-35 from deep and 50.6 per cent from the floor.
Toronto led after the first quarter and was in reasonable shape at half, trailing 58-54, bolstered by tremendous performances from Lowry, VanVleet and – for the first time this year, arguably – Siakam.
But once again the game began to slip away in the third quarter as the Suns hit 8-of-10 threes on their way to a season-high. The Raptors have now allowed opponents to shoot 52 per cent from deep in the third quarter this season and 57 per cent from the floor – both the worst marks in the league.
The Suns kept rolling. A traditional three-point play by Dario Saric put Phoenix up by 15 with 9:31 to play before the Raptors began chipping away, if only to fall short.
As the Raptors head to Sacramento to play Friday they have some positives to draw on. Siakam looked as quick and decisive as he has in nearly a year, which translated directly to a season-high 14 trips to the free-throw line and builds on a 22-point outing against Boston on Monday night. The Raptors outscored the Suns in the paint and in transition and held their own on the glass – all points of emphasis.
But the scoreboard told a familiar, frustrating story for Toronto, echoing the theme of a troubling day and a concerning time.
