He gathers the defensive rebound at the Raptors’ 3-point line, RJ Barrett racing ahead of him, an easy transition layup in sight. No, no, I’d rather not, thinks Brandon Ingram. The time is not right. Or, the vibes are wrong. Instead Ingram casually dribbles the ball up the court, opting not to run in transition. He moves languid, the game moving around him at triple pace. Wow, he thinks. Why is everyone running around? He dribbles, dribbles, dribbles, dribbles, dribbles, eventually loses the ball, almost turning it over before Barrett saves it. Immediately goes into the post and demands it. I am the one who touches the ball. Give it back, it is mine.
Later he takes a flare screen, and Jamal Shead throws the ball to where Ingram should be, were he running around the screen. He is not, loping instead. He almost loses the ball, gathers it, drives, almost runs directly out of bounds. Eventually Scottie Barnes hits a relocation triple on the play.
The Raptors are surviving. They lead, in fact. Foul after foul goes against them. Ja’Kobe Walter collects two to his name in the first minute, the only numbers he puts in the box score in the entire first half. Barnes gets another because he is within the vicinity of the basketball. Darko Rajakovic tries to take a technical on a Barrett touch foul, a gentle caress really, delivered to James Harden, that results in three free throws. The referee calmly takes the abuse, presumably in Serbian, and simply replies by giving another foul to the next Raptor in his line of sight.
And, yet, the Raptors are surviving. Barrett hits a triple sprinting towards Jakob Poeltl, undefended by Jarrett Allen, creating an uncontested above-the-break look. He nails another a moment later. The scoreboard claims Toronto has more points than Cleveland, unlikely as it is.
“The energy in that building,” said Barrett after the game.
Shead ties up Harden and beats him on the jump ball. Ingram almost turns the ball over falling out of bounds, but Collin Murray-Boyles makes a layup on the broken play. The Cavaliers miss a shot, and Ingram opts not to grab the rebound, then Barrett decides not to snatch the rebound on the next miss, until Allen eventually dunks. Rebounds are for suckers. Ball possession, too. Sandro Mamukelashvili hands the ball to Harden, who hits a pull-up triple in transition.
Ingram almost turns it over falling down trying to dribble. The Raptors lead, somehow. This isn’t survival in a hard-fought basketball game so much as a prank, a joke, a mystical experience. Ingram’s peyote has hit at the wrong time.
And yet the Raptors continue to lead. Ingram hits a turnaround in the post. The peyote has hit at the right time. Donovan Mitchell dribbles the ball out of bounds, but the referees decide Cleveland should keep it anyway. There is a five-second call on the ensuing inbounds. Dennis Schroder steps out of bounds for no reason. Perhaps Ingram shared his peyote with others. Perhaps I am on peyote, my viewing experience the only commonality between all of these professional basketball players forgetting how to play basketball. Occam’s razor, etcetera.
Ingram posts up above the 3-point line, loses the ball, posts again, and the Raptors turn it over trying to get it to him. Shead steals the ball, then Murray-Boyles promptly loses it, then Murray-Boyles immediately steals it, then Ingram misses.
Some real basketball is played briefly, perhaps a mirage, an oasis in the peyote desert of chaos. Chaos is a ladder, after all. The first quarter ends, yes, it has only been one quarter, the Raptors ahead. There have been 13 total turnovers, impossibly one to Ingram’s name.
For a time the basketball becomes less weird, if bad. Mamukelashvili misses some layups that are sorely needed. What is a peyote hangover?
Ingram returns, spends an entire possession at midcourt hunching with his hands on his shorts, Keon Ellis nervously standing beside him. How long does this last, anyway? Toronto opts not to guard a corner triple on the next defensive possession. Cleveland is lurching closer, a punch-drunk boxer playing hide-and-seek, slowly checking this closet, that room, drawing ever closer in the dark. Ingram guards Allen in the post, guards wildly, flails this way then that trying not to foul, before falling on Allen and being called for the foul anyway. The peyote trip may not be done.
In fact, it is a journey of self-revelation. The soul stripped bare. As Darko Rajakovic continues to repeat, the playoffs are a learning environment. Sometimes learning is force-fed, Clockwork-Orange style, the lessons too powerful, too manifold, too true.
First there is vomiting, taking the form of turnovers for the Raptors. But it turns out that portion of the journey has not ended. Barrett drives, gives it away, Murray-Boyles steals it back, gives it away once more. The teams trade baskets, Murray-Boyles muscling layups over defenders, Barnes another triple, but Max Strus strokes it easy, too. The Cavaliers have found Toronto, now, the Raptors’ hiding place laid bare, the door thrown open, light spilling in through the crack. Murray-Boyles misses a dunk, which rattles in regardless. Mamukelashvili is blocked on a dunk attempt, a challenge ruling it clean.
The Raptors cannot win a rebound. They try so desperately, most of them, but are too small, too slow. Eventually the ball falls out of bounds, Toronto ball. Barnes hits a mid-ranger to retake the lead. Draws free throws loping through the lane on the next possession. He has taken the mantle of leader here, settling the team through its paroxysms of dread and discovery. He is the spirit guide. He has 18 points and six assists at halftime.
But he misses free throws, unlike Strus, who does not miss triples. Cleveland leads, now. Until Barnes steals the ball, finds Murray-Boyles, who dunks in transition. It feels for the first time as though Toronto is not surviving, not hanging from the edge of a cliff of their own imagination, as much as pushing forward through this viscerality. These two are ready. These two are sober. Damn the rest, these two will take Toronto there.
After the vomiting come the truths. The Raptors are about to find themselves strong.
Barnes has learned what there is to learn. He is ready to teach. He draws free throws. He pretends to dribble away from the rim, then spins towards it for a layup. He drives through Evan Mobley and makes the layup over top of the far, far smaller man. Perspective is strange on peyote, they say. He blocks Donovan Mitchell on a drive, draws free throws from Allen in transition.
Barrett presses Strus, forces a turnover. Barnes draws more free throws. He has 27 points now, already a playoff career high and more than any two Cavaliers combined. The Raptors are hunting, now. They have tasted blood in this desert, and it tastes like wine. Their lessons, their first-half purge that was perhaps a fever dream, perhaps didn’t happen at all except in their delirious minds, have revealed strength.
Barnes sits, his rest earned. Minutes later, Rajakovic tells Murray-Boyles to enter the game, and Barnes bodily hurls him towards the scorer’s table. Hunt.
“I don’t know why he did that,” said a deadpan Murray-Boyles after the game. “It wasn’t even a dead ball.”
The Cavaliers begin to panic. Harden turns it over, then again. Sam Merrill airballs a triple. Ingram has found his balance, hits a jumper. Walter’s defence has become miraculous, as he lithely mirrors every movement his men attempt. Murray-Boyles takes the ball from Harden on a lob attempt. He dunks a blocked Shead floater. He pins an Allen dunk attempt. He hits a pair of floaters.
“He was a warrior,” said Rajakovic after the game.
The Raptors cannot build a lead. Everything is different from the first half, but for that one fact. In the first half, Toronto was wild-eyed and delirious, and led by a point here or perhaps by two there. In the second half, Toronto is focused and primal, and leads by a point here or perhaps by two there. The lessons from the spirit journey cannot put points on the scoreboard.
Barnes hits a buzzer-beating jumper to end the quarter to give Toronto a two-point lead.
The basketball is sharp now. Both teams are fully roused. The Raptors didn’t find prey in the desert, but another monster. They tear at one another’s flanks. Undaunted, Jamison Battle hits a triple. Mobley dunks. Murray-Boyles hits a layup to tie his regular-season career high, and Battle hits another triple. The lead is six, perhaps a hundred. The toxins have bled fully from Toronto’s veins, nothing left but assuredness. If we can survive this.
Murray-Boyles dimes Barrett, and-1, grabs the missed rebound, dimes Battle for another triple. He grabs a Barnes miss, tosses it back in the net. The lead is six, perhaps a thousand. A steal, a triple, a timeout.
This game is fully about the Raptors, now. Ingram hasn’t played for a long time, but it means little in the maelstrom of a lead, at last, a lead. Chaos was a ladder, survivable, in the first half. Stability has been an elevator in the second. Barnes sits for perhaps 20 seconds of game time, and Barrett hits a pull-up triple. It is destiny, now. The beast is cornered, tired, not maddened but accepting its fate. Toronto obliges.
The lead at last swells and crests. Battle hits another triple, his fourth, or his 10th. Toronto leads by 17. Cleveland calls a timeout, turns it over, calls a timeout. The final buzzer marches towards the game, no mystery left but the size of the victory. Barrett hits another pull-up triple, another layup. He has joined Barnes at 33 points. Another timeout, Cleveland’s last. Cleveland’s deep bench emerges to play, the white flag fully aloft.
Is the series within reach now? Toronto has passed through a storm and emerged predatorial. Perhaps Barnes and Murray-Boyles remain the two best players in the series. Or perhaps this is one moment of crystalized perfection floating alone in a sea of lessons. It is impossible for this game to repeat itself. These two teams could play one another until judgement day, and this peyote-fueled chaos fiesta would never occur again. Maybe the Raptors find another type of game they can win.
Regardless, there is glory enough from this. The Raptors are on the board. Welcome to the playoffs.