From the moment they arrived in Florida, the Toronto Raptors have been clear about where they want to go.
The question, as they tipped off their first-round playoff matchup against the Brooklyn Nets on Monday, was how they were going to get there?
A straight line or would they take the scenic route?
In their 134-110 Game 1 win over the Nets, there was a taste of both.
Toronto both looked the part of a dominant, deep championship team that can completely dismantle a lesser opponent, and one that can be had if it doesn’t have all its parts moving in sync.
Bridging the two was Raptors guard Fred VanVleet who picked up where he left off when he couldn’t miss a shot against in the latter half of the Eastern Conference Finals and NBA Finals.
VanVleet’s playoff career-high 30 points came on 15 shots — he was 8-of-10 from deep — while he still managed to distribute 11 assists, making it the highest-scoring double-digit assist game in franchise playoff history.
VanVleet helped the Raptors to a quick start, penetrating the paint at will and scoring or passing accordingly as Toronto led by 33 in the first half.
And then, as the Nets cut Toronto’s lead to nine entering the third quarter, he was critical when Toronto reasserted its will in the fourth to put the game away.
No matter how the Raptors got there, it was a better start than they managed last season in the playoffs.
Even on their way to a championship, the Raptors took a minute to signal their intentions. The Raptors lost their first game against the Orlando Magic on a defensive miscue at the buzzer and for a moment it seemed like same old team, unable to shake its allergy to winning game one of playoff series for most of its history.
The Raptors made clear that things would be different when they held the Magic to 39 points in the first half of Game 2 and essentially didn’t let up their defensive intensity until Marc Gasol was swigging wine by the bottle atop a double-decker bus in a championship parade.
Coming off a 7-1 mark during the seeding games to end the regular season, it seemed a safe bet that the Raptors were primed to dominate, but even coach Nick Nurse was curious about what would happen when the playoff lights went on, they were kicking off their ninth week in Florida and Jurassic Park was far away and empty.
“Well, I think that I’m not sitting here hoping we play well,” Nurse said before the game. “But I am also cognizant of the fact that this is, first of all, a long game, 48 minutes, and a long series, so there’s some, obviously, some interest to see how we’re gonna come out of the gate, and there’s gonna be some interest to see how we play, how we sustain the way we play. That’s really the key, because it is a long game.”
The first quarter was a thing of beauty and an advertisement for how the Raptors plan to march back to the summit of the NBA.
The Raptors have made a project this year of dismantling the best players in the league. They held LeBron James to a season-low tying 13 points; Damian Lillard to a season-low nine points, Anthony Davis to two field goals and Joel Embiid to a goose egg.
So while the Nets’ Caris LeVert has played some great basketball in the seeding portion of the schedule – he led Brooklyn with 25 points a game in the bubble – he’s not James, Lilliard, Davis, Embiid or any of the other superstars Toronto’s amoeba-like defence has been able to put off stride.
The Raptors didn’t hold back. In the first quarter, LeVert got VanVleet picking him up at half court on one possession and Kyle Lowry on another. If he tried to turn the corner on either of them, help came in the form of OG Anunoby or Pascal Siakam – rangy wing defenders with the footspeed to make life difficult on any guard.
LeVert was limited to just four shots in the first quarter, one made field goal and was forced into a pair of turnovers. To his credit, he adjusted and racked up six quick assists as a playmaker, but to the extent the Raptors game plan called for limiting the Nets’ leading scorer, it seemed like mission accomplished, even if he finished with 15 points and 15 assists, albeit on 5-of-14 shooting with five turnovers.
The Raptors did their best to make sure their mission was over by halftime. Their defence was fuelling their offence as the Raptors ran off turnovers and sprinted off Nets’ misses. Catching the Nets in transition meant the Raptors could push the ball into the paint, suck in the Nets’ scrambling defence and pitch it out to wide-open shooters. When Anunoby stepped into a corner three off a pass from VanVleet, it was Toronto’s ninth three on 18 attempts and its 14th assist on 21 field goals as the Raptors pushed their lead to 60-31 on the strength of a 21-9 run.
But sustainability was a word that Nurse used, perhaps with good reason. And the Nets weren’t about to fold up and go home – perhaps because for the moment there is nowhere to go.
The Nets finished the first half on a 16-5 run to cut the Raptors’ lead from a peak of 33 points down to 22 at the break and then went on 16-4 run midway through the third to cut the lead to nine with 3:18 to play in the fourth quarter.
And while Toronto was able to keep LeVert largely at under control as a scorer, his playmaking kept the Nets rolling with Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot often the beneficiary as he put up 22 of his Nets-best 26 points in the first three quarters, often finishing plays made by LeVert.
But VanVleet never panicked – has he ever?
In just less than two minutes in the early fourth quarter, he hit his seventh three, assisted on one by Anunoby and then hit his eighth triple to push the Raptors’ lead to 15 at the with just under nine minutes to play and they were on their way.
He was assisted by 22 points of the bench from Serge Ibaka and 18 from Siakam as Toronto knocked down a record 22 threes.
From where they started, where they end up will be the story of the next two months. As Game 1 showed, it won’t always be easy.
