“It was great. A lot of people don’t get a chance to play a Game 7 with everything on the line”.
Advertisement
He knows there’s nothing better.
The NBA and American television networks had to be breathing a sigh of relief when Miami pasted Charlotte earlier Sunday, rallying from a 3-2 series deficit to advance to the East semifinals.
It’s do or die for the Raptors as Toronto looks to stay alive in the National Basketball Association playoffs with a Game 7 win over the Indiana Pacers Sunday, May 1. “I was in that position as a rookie, having to guard the best player at the time, Derrick Rose”. You might make mistakes, but at the end of the day, you have to try and make up for your mistakes. You feel good about going there. In Game 7 he didn’t want to shoot at all, not from the outside anyway.
Of course, the Raptors being the Raptors, they had to cause some anxiety for their fans, seeing a 16-point lead in the fourth quarter shrink all the way down to three inside the final minute. After DeRozan missed a 3-pointer, Solomon Hill grabbed the rebound and IN called a timeout to draw up a play for George, but he turned the ball over. “It’s the final game. It’s time for us to go out and take advantage of why we have home-court advantage”. “We were doing it, but we came up short”. The last time the Raptors won a playoff series, I had just moved to Toronto, ready to begin my career. They took Boston to the limit in a best-of-five first-round series but succumbed to their lack of experience. In some respects, it was now or never for a team which had enjoyed the best regular season in franchise history.
The Pacers relied heavily on jump shots in the first half, but even increased attacking in the second half didn’t benefit in much at all, with four free throws a half being all they could muster in that department.
Not to alarm anybody, but Pearl Jam is scheduled to play a show at the ACC the same night as Game 5. He connected on a three, and in that moment, you nearly felt like the game was over a mere 18 seconds in. They couldn’t shoot the whole damned series, and their lead was vanishing down a gaping hole. “There’s a reason we’re going to Game 7 – and it’s because both teams have been scratching and clawing”.
Mason Plumlee played 25 minutes on Sunday. The futures of Casey (team option) and DeRozan (unrestricted free agent) might have depended on it. None of that matters now. “You know what? It’s a privilege to be in a Game 7. It’s something to really embrace and cherish”.
IN had the ball with 26.9 seconds to go, down by three, but the Raptors made the stop. Here’s how upside down this was: The Pacers were coming back, on the road, against the No. 2 seed – despite Paul George coming apart at the seams.
He’s scored 33, 28 and 39 there in this series, with defense.
DeRozan’s 2-for-2 trip capped a 30 point night to lead the Raptors, but even his night was more complicated than that sentence makes it sound. “He was going to empty the clip”, Lowry said of his backcourt mate, defending the fact that he was determined to go down shooting. It’s one game. Survive or don’t survive.
“Got the monkey off our back, more than anything, with these past couple of years. Gotta win. Gotta win”.
Last October, Jose Bautista went down in Toronto lore for his bat flip after a series-clinching home run against the Rangers in Game 5 of the ALCS, an iconic moment for a fan base waiting more than two decades for postseason success.
“We’ll respond like we’re supposed to”.
DeRozan made just one of five field goal attempts in the second, but Powell came off the bench to score 10 points. “We’ve got an opportunity”.
Advertisement
“We remade our franchise this year”, Vogel said, “completely recreated an identity, worked through several shifts this season”.
