The NBA playoffs have met the Toronto Raptors now — the real Raptors, the ones who won 59 games and won the top seed in the Eastern Conference, the team that’s a real threat to LeBron James and rolls their eyes at your tired “oh but it’s the Raptors!” jokes. That’s what Toronto did on Tuesday in a 130-119 win against the Washington Wizards, going up 2-0 in the series and showing off all over the court.
The Raptors shellacked the Wizards in Game 2. This is how good they’re supposed to be.
Toronto essentially blew out Washington all game, one abnormal bench performance aside.
John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
Toronto’s 11-point final margin is misleading, because this felt like a much more dominant performance. Washington pushed back into the game in the fourth quarter, but every Wizards run was met with a Raptors answer. With about eight minutes left, John Wall cut the lead to just five points, but Toronto rattled off the next seven points to make sure they stayed ahead. With 3:38 left in the game, the Raptors had marched out to a 125-107 lead with this hustle play that essentially sealed it.
The first game in this series reminded us of the old Raptors, the ones with a terrible Game 1 curse. Until Saturday, Toronto had literally never won the series opener for any first round! But despite a slow start and their stars struggling to score, they won, which is a remarkable departure from the narrative we had come to expect from them.
Does that mean this year is different? It’s a good sign, but Game 2 was a better one. Toronto exploded to a 42-point first quarter and had 76 by halftime, roasting Washington’s rather nonexistent defense — as they well should.
DeMar DeRozan was monstrous all game, finishing with 37 points on 14-of-23 shooting, hitting half of his six three-point attempts, and dishing out four assists, too.
DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, still Toronto’s two best players, have infamously struggled in the playoffs, but both are looking to erase that narrative. For DeRozan, this is a good way to do it. Lowry was also good — 12 assists, great defense as always — although his scoring will need to pick up at some point this postseason. (He’s shooting 7-of-19 through the first two games.)
If I told you the following things ...
- Toronto will score 130 points
- Bradley Beal will be smothered and manage just nine points on 3-of-11 shooting
- Washington will run Marcin Gortat (and his killer pick-and-roll with Wall) completely off the court, where he only plays 12 minutes.
- Otto Porter Jr. will stay contained, too, with only 12 points
... then you would probably guess this was a 30-point blowout. Without Mike Scott and Ty Lawson combining to shoot 8-of-10 from behind the arc, it probably would have been. Scott is a solid shooter on a limited number of attempts, while Lawson shot under 30 percent on the year. In total, Washington’s bench had 63 points. And Washington needed that just so they could trail by five points in the fourth quarter and lose by 11.
Toronto has a familiar problem: nobody will trust them until they prove it. We’ve all been scared away before. But Dwane Casey and Masai Ujiri have helped build a masterful team here, one that has thrived even without (probably) a top-15 player. Hell, Casey broke out the 13-man rotation on Tuesday, and it wasn’t even due to last-minute garbage time subs. (There were some ulterior factors, though, like Fred VanVleet being not quite healthy enough.)
The Raptors won’t prove anything in the first round, sure. They know that. But they also know that they can play like this, and Game 2 was a reminder why that’s so dangerous.
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