When a LeBronto assist breaks Toronto’s heart

If we are now in the second test of the season, yesterday was an opportunity to quickly roll the boulder up the hill and smash Zeus with it. That may not have happened, as hoped, but the Raptors put Mount Olympus on notice, surely earning the respect of the West – we are no fluke now.

However, Toronto has seen last night’s story play out many times. An underdog Toronto team keeps fighting, gets close to pulling an upset, and then gets its heart stolen and stomped. What seemed like a game that would go into overtime ended in regulation as Rui Hachimura cashed the buzzer-beating corner 3.

Hachimura went scoreless and took only one shot in the Lakers’ blowout loss to the Suns. But he has been ridiculously efficient from downtown this season and got the perfect look last night, off a perfect LeBron pass. 

The Lakers shot 31 3s and hit them at a 42% clip. They attempted nine in the first quarter and a 3-point shooting contest ensued in the third quarter between Austin Reaves (who shot 3-4 from downtown in the frame) and the Raptors, who made five of them (two from Scottie). The Lakers attempted 11 in the fourth, but only made three of them.

Despite losing at the buzzer, the Raptors kept the game close – and even when the Lakers’ lead was bigger, the game never felt out of reach. So credit to the Raptors for being able to push this game down to a coin flip.  

There’s countless things that could have tipped this game either way – it was a game of inches in clutch time. After LeBron made his lay-up (his eighth point) to tie the game at 118 apiece, the Raptors were unable to create on the ensuing possession, leading to BI hoisting a 3-point prayer (and missing) to beat the shot clock. BI’s offensive foul on Reaves wasn’t upgraded to a flagrant foul – thankfully – and if it did, the Lakers would not only have gained momentum, another water bottle would have likely exploded. The Raptors now drop to 8-4 in clutch time. 

Scottie (one assist shy of a triple-double with 23 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists) and BI were pivotal in pushing this game into clutch time. Scottie hit two above-the-break 3s in the third quarter. BI had a momentum-shifting play after nearly losing his handle with Jake LaRavia guarding him. He threw up a seemingly impossible mid-range heave over him and Gabe Vincent, and, somehow, found the bottom of the hoop. Scotiabank roared in excitement as the Raptors inched within one point. In clutch time, BI nailed a wide open elbow jumper too, which he created by attacking the paint and getting a pass back from Mamu down low.    

Scottie was (insert Serbian accent) “face of the league” level, scoring, distributing and defending when needed. Every block was loud, especially the last one on LeBron with a minute left and the game tied. After LeBron’s eighth point – the last time he scored in single digits was 18 years ago when he started with Eric Snow and Drew Gooden – he tried to score again, giving Scottie a quick pump fake, and his signature turnaround fadeaway jumper. But Scottie mailed it right back to Hollywood and Akron, Ohio. Scottie set the tone from the start of the game, reminding the Lakers why he was the East’s Defensive Player of the month, and had a powerful block on DeAndre Ayton as well. 

Scottie never tried to force his buckets last night. In the third quarter, when he couldn’t score on Ayton down low, he grabbed his own miss and fed sophomore Ja’Kobe Walter, who got the and-one on James. In the fourth, Scottie probed and probed, waiting for Mamu to cut, and when the latter scored off his assist, Scottie was over-the-moon happy. 

Prior to the game, I messaged my fellow Canadian friend in Japan and Lakers fan Shailly Sharma at the Playmaker to see how things we’re viewed from the other side. “I think this will also be a really important game for Hachimura to step up and be a little bit more aggressive” now seems prophetic, but he also looked forward to seeing who’d step up in RJ’s absence. 

Luka may have been out, but Poeltl and Barrett’s absence wasn’t felt because the bench stepped up. Yes, Ayton got a lot of lobs – as one of my favourite basketball writers observed, “You need to feed him buckets; he won’t create many on his own,” but CMB had a solid defensive performance. After LeBron got his preferential treatment – not getting called on trying to push off the rookie who’s younger than LeBron’s playing career – CMB swatted him. When the two were left on an island, CMB forced a LeBron to miss. In the third quarter, CMB dropped on a pick-and-roll initiated by Reaves and stripped him deep in the paint. 

Jamal Shead continued to touch the paint and create for teammates. He had a signature Dulux employee dump-off pass to CMB after drawing a charge on the defensive end in the second quarter. He also had a nice double cross on Vincent before dumping off the pass to CMB. 

We’re seeing Walter’s growth before our eyes – he easily had his best game of the season dropping 17 points on the Lakers. He had a clutch corner 3 to force a timeout before 44-point scorer Reaves answered with a triple to put LA up two in a 3-point shooting contest. 

Mamu hit back-to-back 3s in the second when the gap was wider, and had an impressive defensive play – as if to answer Matty D’s call to guard higher up on screens, he did exactly that mid-way through the fourth quarter as he and Shead guarded a Ayton-Reaves pick-and-roll. Mamu came up high and that helped Shead steal the ball, though the former blew the dunk. Jamison Battle had an efficient scoring night, hitting a triple that proved LeBron not only reads the first page of books, but neither Battle’s scouting report. 

There’s lot to be hopeful and excited for even in last night’s loss, and the fight the Raptors showed has now cemented the expectation that they compete with the league’s elite on any given night.