The Raptors are still a footnote in LeBron James’ story

TORONTO — At training camp, back when Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri’s ‘culture reset’ mandate was just an idea, coach Dwane Casey told his team he wanted them to shoot 30 three-pointers per game. It seemed optimistic.

A few months into the season, non-shooters started drilling long balls, and the ball started whipping around the court. The offense morphed. Young bucks like Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby unlocked a switch-heavy defense. Fred VanVleet grounded them, becoming the floor general for the league’s best bench. By April, the Raptors secured the No. 1 seed in the East.

The locker room was particularly raucous on March 9, when the Raptors dispatched the West’s No. 1 seed, the Houston Rockets. Despite life and The Sopranos having the last word on the matter, the Raptors seemed capable of change. Propelled by self-belief, friendship, and endless toil, they looked like they were on the precipice of something special. It was the beginning of a wild ride that led improbably to Game 2, the most important night in franchise history.

For LeBron James, it was merely a Thursday. Or Saturday. He couldn’t quite remember after playing nine playoff games in 18 days. That didn’t stop him from playing 41 perfect minutes, in which he scored 43 points and dished 14 assists, turned the ball over just once (!!!) and dismantled a game-plan that took Toronto 89 games to build.

The Raptors, in fact, did hoist up 30 threes. Twenty-six of their 44 field goal attempts were assisted. They shot 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from three, and 90 percent from the stripe. According to ESPN’s Kevin Pelton, other teams who shot as those clip this year went 45-6, and none lost by double digits. The Raptors got blown off the floor, 128-110.

Those painstakingly accomplished numerical feats paled in comparison to James’ fluid control of the game. For all the progress the Raptors made, their decision-making waned when the answers stopped being easy.

In the fourth quarter, after a timeout, James got the switch on DeMar DeRozan, drove, and bobbled it mid-air. With seemingly nowhere to go, he whipped it to Jeff Green in his pocket for a triple.

James’ encyclopedic knowledge, unselfishness and transcendent talent coalesced, allowing him to make the right decision every single time. The Raptors wanted to be unguardable this season, to leverage the gravity of their two star players in a modernized offense that made every concession deadly. James showed them: this is what it actually looks like.

They tried everything to stop him. Anunoby held James by the hip to relative success, until James decided to power his way to the rim. Siakam’s size and athleticism worked against James to a point, but he was too reactive, too easy for James to toy with. Jonas Valanciunas dropped back. Jakob Poeltl played up.

Late in the third quarter, when the starters allowed the Cavs to extend their lead to 11, Casey put in the bench mob. The signature of his Coach of the Year campaign, and a bold move. During the most critical juncture of the season, Casey sat his two stars.

It started to work: CJ Miles hit a three. Delon Wright blew to the rim for a layup. Poeltl got to the line. But the fresh energy they injected on defense was quickly deflated by James hitting a fadeaway over Siakam, nailing a tough step-back three, and then driving to the rim.

James’ failure in the 2011 NBA Finals was, in many ways, the precursor to his multifaceted command of the game. Casey, then an assistant coach for the Dallas Mavericks, designed a defense that beat James and the Heat by forcing him to take jump-shots and posting him up against the likes of a 6’3 37-year-old Jason Kidd.

Never again would he be rendered incapable of dominating. Never again would he lose to a team less talented than his.

“I work extremely hard on my jump shot and after my first year in Miami, I started working on my post game, ways I could score in the post and be very efficient,” James said. “Tonight was just a byproduct of that.”

James and basketball are the perfect match because neither has a ceiling. Even prehistoric basketball was free-flowing and individualistic, with five players sharing the court playing both offense and defense. The advent of the positional revolution pushed the sport to its logical extreme, allowing any player to do anything, stripping any limits to the stamp one individual could put on the game. James reacted to that freedom by deciding he would be good at everything all the time, if need be.

That was the promise of his career, and increment by increment, he has delivered.

“I wasn’t a complete basketball player,” he said of his performance back then. “Casey drew up a game-plan against me to take away things I was very good at and tried to make me do things I wasn’t very good at. So he’s part of the reason why I am who I am today.”

Casey pushed James to become the player who destroyed them so thoroughly last night. In a lesser sense, these Raptors did too. That, ultimately, will be their only lasting mark in history.