TORONTO \u2014 When it comes to high-leverage playoff games, having help from unexpected sources is crucial, especially for the underdog.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Toronto Raptors<\/a>\u00a0got it in their pivotal Game 3 win over the\u00a0Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a>, when breakout star rookie Collin Murray-Boyles<\/a> set a franchise record for points scored by a first-year player with 22 points on 11-of-15 shooting and his standard reign of havoc defensively.<\/p>\n One of the reasons the Raptors found their legs in the second half of Game 2 was the way backup big man Sandro Mamukelashvili found his, chipping in 12 points and 10 rebounds off the bench.<\/p>\n But as Game 4 approaches, with the Raptors looking to even the first-round best-of-seven series at two games apiece \u2014 to really make it a series \u2014 it\u2019s time for Toronto itself to make an impact.<\/p>\n Not the crowd at Scotiabank Arena, or outside at Jurassic Park, who certainly did their part Friday, both encouraging and riding the fourth-quarter momentum that saw the Raptors win in a joyous blowout.<\/p>\n No, we\u2019re talking about the crowd at any of Toronto\u2019s downtown night spots.<\/p>\n If playoff games are decided by matchups, the matchup between\u00a0James Harden<\/a>\u00a0and Toronto\u2019s reputation as a place to have a good time for visiting athletes and celebrities could tip the balance in a game which starts at 1 p.m. ET Sunday. After all, that\u2019s only 11 hours after the clubs close \u2014 and those are just the clubs the average Toronto Joe can go to. Big Night James likely knows people.<\/p>\n Normally, there would be some hesitation about implying an NBA player could be lured down a low-performance path by the temptations of the night, but this is Harden, who has been camped out in Toronto since Thursday night.<\/p>\n Conjecture? Speculation? Rumour?<\/p>\n Well, consider what his ex-teammates say about the bearded wonder who has engineered both a hall-of-fame career and hall-of-hame reputation as an all-time bon vivant.<\/p>\n \u201c(The) man could sit up here and go out,\u201d Robert Covington, who played with Harden on the Houston Rockets in 2013-14,\u00a0said recently on the\u00a0Run Your Race\u00a0podcast.<\/a>\u00a0“James be out all night, till four, five in the morning, and that man up at seven o\u2019clock working out \u2026 and I\u2019m talking about drinking heavy. We\u2019re not talking about, like, (what) we here sipping right now. We\u2019re talking about 10, 12, 13, 15 shots. Bottles, like, bottles. Great time. And he going to go home, going to have that little power nap and he\u2019ll be in that gym.”<\/p>\n And Toronto\u2019s reputation as a road city that requires careful navigation is well earned. In the earliest days of the franchise, former Raptors general manager Isiah Thomas’s decision to introduce 1 p.m. Sunday starts was very intentional as he was looking for every advantage he could find. As he told me once about the intended awkwardness of the early tip: \u201cNBA players work nights.\u201d<\/p>\n Could a long night and an early start have been the secret ingredient that fueled the Raptors’ legendary upset of Michael Jordan during their (then) record-setting 72-win season in 1995-96? Maybe. Former Raptors assistant and head coach Darrell Walker was a close friend of Jordan\u2019s, and keeping the Bulls star occupied the night before games in Toronto was a strategy to level the playing field against one of the NBA\u2019s all-time dynasties.<\/p>\n A prominent U.S. sports columnist eventually dubbed Toronto \u2018White Vegas\u2019, which took on a double meaning when the Raptors hosted the 2016 NBA All-Star Game in the midst of a record-setting polar vortex.<\/p>\n Flashing forward, Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic introduced a number of tactical wrinkles that helped the Raptors get over the top in Game 3. Ones that, in particular, limited the effectiveness of Harden, who was averaging 25 points and seven assists and 3.5 steals on 53.5 per cent shooting after the first two games in Cleveland, but mustered just 18 points, four assists and no steals \u2014 along with a game-high eight turnovers \u2014 in Game 3.<\/p>\n And that was after being in Toronto on a Wednesday night.<\/p>\n But maybe in Game 4, in addition to having Raptors star Scottie Barnes<\/a> cover Harden as much as possible, having King Street play a match-up zone both Friday and Saturday night could have an effect?<\/p>\n Which isn\u2019t to say Harden would go full Beard mode in these circumstances. You\u2019d think an important playoff game would be enough for him to make the choice to cozy up in his suite at the Shangri-La to stream and chill for a couple of nights. The man is 36; all good things come to an end.<\/p>\n But conforming to external expectations of behaviour has never been Harden\u2019s thing. There was, for example, the Christmas Party he attended at a Houston strip club during the pandemic, where he violated league rules, got COVID and caused the NBA to suspend the Houston Rockets (Harden\u2019s team at the time) game against the Oklahoma City Thunder because Houston didn\u2019t have enough eligible players. Harden was fined $50,000 for ignoring COVID protocols.<\/p>\n Maybe Harden has taken his off-court game down a notch. But then again, he had eight turnovers in the Raptors\u2019 Game 3 win on Thursday, and that was an 8 p.m. start. It could have just been the Raptors’ strategy to attack him so relentlessly on defence that it left him rubber-legged on offence.<\/p>\n Could have been something else.<\/p>\n And while we\u2019re on the subject? No judgement. Working hard and playing hard is an NBA tradition dating back to the Wilt Chamberlain era. Celtics legend Larry Bird enjoyed his beers and famously jeopardized a Celtics playoff run by busting up the thumb on his shooting hand in a bar fight.<\/p>\n Jordan saw nothing wrong with spending a long night and early morning in an Atlantic City casino during a tightly contested playoff series against the New York Knicks.<\/p>\n All of that makes for more entertaining stories than the admirable \u2014 though dull \u2014 mantra of cold tubs, treatment and post-game lifting that we have to get by on in the NBA\u2019s wellness era.<\/p>\n Still, even if Harden zags and tucks himself early on Saturday night rather than early Sunday morning, just the oddness of a 1 p.m. tip \u2014 something NBA teams might have less than a handful of times in the regular season \u2014 could work in the Raptors’ favour.<\/p>\n Although it\u2019s the same for both teams, only one team is playing at home.<\/p>\n Brandon Ingram<\/a> \u2014 who famously takes 3\u20134-hour naps in the afternoon of night games \u2014 said his domestic environment might help get him some rest.<\/p>\n \u201cMy girl\u2019s around so she’ll get on my nerves enough where I just want to go to sleep,\u201d said Ingram, who dates hip-hop star GloRilla and is still looking for his breakout game in the series against a Cavaliers defence that has held him to 12 points per game on 39.4 per cent shooting, nearly 10 points less than his season average.\u201c<\/p>\n Finding a way to similarly contain Harden is at the top of the Raptors scouting report. The results have been mixed so far, but Harden and the Cavs are 0-1 on the road, just saying.<\/p>\n If there was ever a time for Toronto\u2019s nightlife to live up to its big-game reputation, this could be it.<\/p>\n In the playoffs, a little help defence can go a long way.<\/p>\n