The Raptors improved, but Ingram doomed their Game 2 performance
Scottie Barnes’ spidey senses are tingling. He peels away from the middle of the floor early and reaches a hand up to contest Jarrett Allen under the rim, holding the ball firm in the air as Allen squirms, trying to muscle it past him. Allen is unable to. The ball falls to Evan Mobley, and it is Collin Murray-Boyles’ turn to don the mask. He reaches around Mobley’s step-through and swats the ball away from the larger man. But the ball squirts around the floor and eventually falls into the hands of James Harden. He calmly strides into the lane and hits a floater.
It was a microcosm of the Toronto Raptors’ Game-2 failure against the Cleveland Cavaliers. They tried desperately. They had moments of excellence. But they were ultimately undone by their own failings, as well as Cleveland’s execution and talent.
In many ways, Game 2 was Toronto’s to win. They were winning the rebounding battle. They were finally getting out in transition and romping their way to easy (relatively) points. They were playing real defence with real teeth that took real bites out of Cleveland’s flank. They were not being held afloat by hot shooting from non-shooters. In fact, they were shooting quite poorly. Cleveland, on the other hand, was being buoyed by some outrageous, late-clock bailout shooting from Harden and Donovan Mitchell on a variety of occasions.
They rained triples upon Toronto. Against single coverage, double coverage. Everything was contested. Mitchell hit spinning, floating, fading jumpers and push shots from the mid-range whenever the Cavaliers saw the clock get low. Toronto defended them well. Very well. But they were impervious.
Mostly, Toronto was able to keep pushing the boulder up the hill. But there were silly, needless turnovers. Toronto finished with 22, each one a separate stubbed toe of Toronto’s fortunes. At times, the Raptors failed to gather loose balls. On one vivid occasion, Ingram had the ball tipped away from him and didn’t bother chasing it as it rolled out of bounds. The referees gave the ball to Cleveland.
In fact, Ingram was entirely off. Shortly after complaining about his usage in Game 1, Ingram’s largest contributions were turnovers of all varieties — botched passes, fumbled dribbles, push-offs trying to create position. He didn’t bother grabbing a defensive rebound bouncing near him in the fourth quarter. He attacked the defensive glass, and credit to him winning some real battles there. But outside of that one modest area, his performance was best defined by nonchalance and passivity. He finished with seven points, five turnovers, and 12 missed shots.
Despite those inexplicable failures, there were moments of excellence. Barnes — despite struggling with turnovers himself — pushed the ball with ferocious intentionality. He raced the ball up the court after makes, after misses, after turnovers. At times that also led to nonsense turnovers passing the ball to nobody. But at other times it created open passes to open cutters for open layups. Toronto’s offence was so gimpy and descript and any oxygen was life-giving. Barnes settled for nothing short of layups in the last 18 minutes of the game. He threw half-spins at Mobley, collecting and-1s. He burst through the lane. He finished with 25 points, all hard-earned, all desperate. It was a playoff career high.
Ja’Kobe Walter was the only Raptor slanging triples, and he did his best to get them up. His defence was also one of Toronto’s best weapons on that end. At one point, he found himself guarding Evan Mobley — dominant to that point in the game — in isolation on the wing. Mobley drove, only for Walter to easily strip the ball out of bounds with almost no time remaining on the clock. Murray-Boyles was finishing in the paint, defending exceptionally, and even winning battles for offensive rebounds. Jakob Poeltl couldn’t find his feet, so he was benched in the second half, and Murray-Boyles picked up a little extra slack. He was up to the occasion.
Toronto did well to push in transition, but too many of those attempts resulted in turnovers committed by Toronto by trying to force looks that weren’t available.
Toronto played physically. At one point, Jaylon Tyson threw Barnes to the ground and walked towards him, clapping. Barrett raced to Barnes, pushing Tyson out of the way, and lifting his star teammate back to his feet. Barnes followed that play with an and-1 push shot in the paint. And Barrett found ways to succeed. He had three putbacks on offence chasing his teammates’ drives. He cut exceptionally off of Barnes for layups. His pick-and-roll initiation frequently created layups for himself. His defence was a major problem for the Raptors in Game 1. He found a variety of ways to contribute positively in this one.
Another microcosm: Jamal Shead sprinted from above the break to the corner to block a triple. Impossibly, he reached the shot. All heart. Then he tore down the floor to run in transition, received the ball, and promptly fumbled it out of bounds. Hearts can make mistakes.
Toronto’s bone-headed turnovers hurt. Ingram’s complete absence from the game hurt worse. But Harden and Mitchell’s peerless excellence hurt most.
Facing a talent deficit, a shooting deficit, a size deficit, an experience deficit, the Raptors have virtually no margin for error against the Cavaliers. By and large, the Raptors played well enough to steal a game on the road. But a variety of factors doomed a real effort from Toronto. It wasn’t a perfect game, not even close. But Toronto threw a solid punch. Cleveland took in on the jaw without any issue. Toronto needs to be perfect, it appears.
The Raptors could bounce back and win a game. Perhaps Mitchell and Harden aren’t so impossibly efficient on impossibly difficult shots. Perhaps Ingram remembers how to play basketball. But it is virtually impossible to win playoff series against already superior teams when such performances still end up in losses due to self-sabotage.
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