For the sake of argument, for people whining, let's remember that over the last five years the Raptors have won more playoff series than any other team in the East except Cleveland. (Even if Boston beats Philly, they'll still only tie Toronto.) Saying that fans are going to disappear is stupid, just like it was stupid last year when Cleveland swept us then and everybody said fans were going to disappear, because fans don't go away when you're having great regular seasons and making playoff runs literally every year.
In about six months the next regular season will commence and the Raps will reel off eight wins in their first ten games and you're all going to stop complaining because it's fun to watch your team win basketball games, so please all of you shut the fuck up about "this team can't win a ring" because ninety-nine percent of all basketball teams cannot ever win a ring, and to be honest this team has exactly one monkey on its back and it happens to be the single best basketball player of all time (and yes he's better than MJ was and playing in an environment that deflates his numbers as compared to MJ) so that's kind of forgiveable.
And before anybody starts complaining about Indiana playing the Cavs better, they really didn't. Cleveland simply played them worse. The Raps and Pacers both contested about the same number of shots (46% for Toronto, 44% for Indiana) but Cleveland A) shot better against Toronto on contested shots than they did against Indiana (56 percent to 54 percent) and B) were just much less streaky than they were against Indiana. Against Indiana, everybody who wasn't LeBron had half a series where they shot well and half a series where they didn't; against Toronto they just all shot well all the time regardless of whether the shots were contested or not. When Cleveland's shots are hitting, they're a good team, and when Cleveland isn't scoring, they aren't. We just had the bad luck to get lengthy hot streaks from Korver, Smith and Love all at once after they spent many games being very bad, and it wasn't because we weren't defending enough of their shots as compared to Indiana. If they had shot like this against the Pacers that series would have been over in four games too.
None of this means that I don't agree that the Raps have mental toughness issues (they do) or that the defensive rotations got really bad (they did) or that there needs to be some trading happening (Ibaka is $20 million of dead weight and needs to be gone as soon as possible, and it's probably a good idea to sell on Norm too). But, again, if the problem with the Raptors is that they can't beat the greatest basketball player of all time because they don't have a true superstar, well, superstars don't grow on trees, so you might as well enjoy some wins.
In about six months the next regular season will commence and the Raps will reel off eight wins in their first ten games and you're all going to stop complaining because it's fun to watch your team win basketball games, so please all of you shut the fuck up about "this team can't win a ring" because ninety-nine percent of all basketball teams cannot ever win a ring, and to be honest this team has exactly one monkey on its back and it happens to be the single best basketball player of all time (and yes he's better than MJ was and playing in an environment that deflates his numbers as compared to MJ) so that's kind of forgiveable.
And before anybody starts complaining about Indiana playing the Cavs better, they really didn't. Cleveland simply played them worse. The Raps and Pacers both contested about the same number of shots (46% for Toronto, 44% for Indiana) but Cleveland A) shot better against Toronto on contested shots than they did against Indiana (56 percent to 54 percent) and B) were just much less streaky than they were against Indiana. Against Indiana, everybody who wasn't LeBron had half a series where they shot well and half a series where they didn't; against Toronto they just all shot well all the time regardless of whether the shots were contested or not. When Cleveland's shots are hitting, they're a good team, and when Cleveland isn't scoring, they aren't. We just had the bad luck to get lengthy hot streaks from Korver, Smith and Love all at once after they spent many games being very bad, and it wasn't because we weren't defending enough of their shots as compared to Indiana. If they had shot like this against the Pacers that series would have been over in four games too.
None of this means that I don't agree that the Raps have mental toughness issues (they do) or that the defensive rotations got really bad (they did) or that there needs to be some trading happening (Ibaka is $20 million of dead weight and needs to be gone as soon as possible, and it's probably a good idea to sell on Norm too). But, again, if the problem with the Raptors is that they can't beat the greatest basketball player of all time because they don't have a true superstar, well, superstars don't grow on trees, so you might as well enjoy some wins.
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