Raptors step up, dispatch Pacers as Heat await
DeMar DeRozan finished his pregame warm-up Sunday evening with a couple underhanded flip layups and some free throws and, as he walked off the Air Canada Centre court, he spotted Wayne Embry holding court on the bench.
DeRozan walked past and smiled, and after he shook the senior advisor’s hand he said quietly as he walked away: “We got this.”
And then he and his teammates took it.
With guile and guts and defence and DeRozan’s 30 points, the Toronto Raptors subdued the Indiana Pacers 89-84 in winning the deciding game of the best-of-seven NBA Eastern Conference playoff series.
It was not without high drama — the can’t-stand-prosperity Raptors frittered saw a 16-point fourth quarter lead cut to three with about 52 seconds left — but a Paul George miss with about 15 seconds was the crucial mistake.
The Raptors collared the loose ball, DeRozan had the presence of mind to dribble out of traffic, make a pass and get the ball back before icing the game with two free throws with 6.5 seconds to go.
Norm Powell, oblivious to the moment as an NBA rookie, had13 points for Toronto while Kyle Lowry, still unable to make a shot, was his gritty best with 11 points and nine assists. George led Indiana with 26 points and George Hill had 19.
The narrative now changes for the Raptors, who won a seven-game series for the first time in franchise history, and beat back the demons of disheartening playoff losses in each of the last two springs.
They will host the Miami Heat in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinal Tuesday at 8 p.m., with Game 2 at the Air Canada Centre on Thursday.
The Raptors took control with a 28-20 third quarter, building a lead as big as 15 points. DeRozan had 13 of those points on a volume shooting night but in a game where Kyle Lowry struggled with his shot and DeMarre Carroll never got going, DeRozan was the team’s best option.
The best part about a Game 7 is no one can predict what might happen, a fact Raptors coach Dwane Casey acknowledged.
“If you had asked me that before the last game, I wouldn’t have known and we came out like gangbusters,” he said. “The game before that I thought we were ready to play and they came out and attacked us so it’s hard to tell in the NBA.
“You just have to prepare your team, talk to them about what’s going on in the moment and the way they come out is the way they come out.”
Casey couldn’t have scripted a better start, the Raptors showed no skittishness, no nerves in building — and holding — an early lead.
DeRozan was far more decisive offensively, scoring 13 of his points in the first quarter, and the Raptors committed only four turnovers, a key to keeping Indiana’s offence at a more pedestrian pace.
“Our Achilles heel in this whole series has been turnovers, whatever play we run, whatever wrinkle we put in, taking care of the basketball and getting a shot safely has been our Achilles heel,” Casey had said before the game.
But it was the surprise production of rookie Norm Powell that allowed the Raptors to take a six-point lead into the intermission.
Powell had 10 points in the second quarter — a couple of corner threepointers among them — to provide the extra spark the Raptors needed on offence.
It was that kind of maturity, and not shrinking from the moment, that Casey wanted to see in the face of intense pressure.
“I feel like our players have embraced it, been through it before and that should give us a little experience,” the coach said.