Trust is the Raptors’ biggest strength and biggest problem

As a young tyke in Compton, California, DeMar DeRozan would spend nights wishing, praying to one day be as tall as Shaquille O’Neal. After realizing that wasn’t going to happen, DeRozan began to idolize Kobe Bryant, eschewing athleticism for angles, torque for twists in the lane. He would never be as athletically imposing as someone like LeBron James, but with enough skill-work, he might be able to approximate his greatness.

In brief moments of Cleveland’s 113-112 Game 1 victory over the Raptors, DeRozan pulled off a few James-esque plays. With just over a minute remaining in regulation, he beat a pick-and-roll trap, got into the middle of the paint and found Serge Ibaka for a wide-open three. On the final play of the game — in regulation and in overtime — he was double-teamed and kicked it to Fred VanVleet. All three shots missed. So did four putback attempts at the end of regulation, just a few of the escalating series of mishaps including botched rebounds and bobbled passes that spelled Toronto’s demise.

It would be an easy solace (as easy as it gets for a Raptors’ team dropping Game 1 at home, at least) to chalk up the loss, as coach Dwane Casey did, to missed shots and weird mistakes, with potentially six more games to course-correct and a blueprint of OG Anunoby guarding James one-on-one and Jonas Valanciunas punishing the Cavs’ small lineups.

But there’s the matter of the 4:30 seconds of overtime that bookended VanVleet’s missed threes, where the gulf between DeRozan, an all-star, and James, a champion and perennial MVP — between who the Raptors are and who they want to be, really — became painfully obvious.

In overtime, Kyle Lowry and DeRozan combined for six of the Raptors’ final seven shots. Not because they’re selfish, or because a couple of missed shots made them stop believing in the process. After the game, DeRozan told reporters, “If I’m in the same situation again, I’m making the exact same pass.”

I believe DeRozan. I believe he and Lowry both want to make smart, unselfish decisions. Put two on the ball with a clear passing angle, and they both know what to do. When things bog down, though? When schemes get complicated? In crunch-time? It looks like they wish somebody would just tell them what those right decisions are.

The Raptors opened overtime with DeRozan running a pick-and-roll with Anunoby on the left side on the floor. With the defense on tilt, DeRozan kicked it to Lowry on the right. Lowry proceeded to pull up for a jumper, only to change his mind and throw a cross-court jump-pass back to DeRozan. Predictably, he got picked off. Later, working in semi-transition, DeRozan jump-passed out of a fade-away attempt over J.R. Smith, only to take — and miss — the same shot a few plays later. I’m not sure he could tell you why one shot was a good idea and the other wasn’t. On the possession where DeRozan passed out, the ball eventually swung its way back to him on the opposite wing. He was 0-for-3 from beyond the arc at that point, and Anunoby was open in the corner.

But in overtime, with the shot clock winding down and the Raptors trailing by a point, DeRozan didn’t see the pass. He only saw the shot. Clank.

While the Raptors have made great strides generally, their crunch-time offense has been mired by indecision this season. In high-pressure moments, it wasn’t the fadeaway over two defenders that killed them. It was the swing made a second too late and the jump-pass out of a makeable shot, lest it be too selfish. The fear of reversion, ironically, summons it most reliably.

In overtime, indecisiveness trickled down from Lowry and DeRozan to the rest of the team. They froze. Anunoby stopped cutting. Ibaka stopped finding the optimal place to spot up. Movement stopped, leaving Valanciunas with no room to hunt second chance opportunities. The gears stopped being interlocked. Instead, they grinded against each other.

A system built on collective trust cannot thrive when belief — and self-belief — aren’t the standard from players one through five, through 48 (or 53) minutes. That’s when Lowry and DeRozan took matters into their own hands. Bad decisions, after all, beat indecision.

The Raptors haven’t kicked these problems because they’re just not that easy to kick. They’re neurological, bang-bang decisions that Lowry and DeRozan have been making for their whole careers.

Shifting inborn instinct, even for this team, might be a progression too far.

In Game 2, 89 games working toward the ‘culture reset’ general manager Masai Ujiri called for this offseason will come down to 48 minutes. After the kind of collapse that calls into question its rationality, the answer, as ever, lies within them.