Game 6 couldn’t have ended in a more perfect way for RJ Barrett. He extended the Raptors’ season by getting a Kawhi-Leonard-like bounce on a 3-pointer with 1.2 seconds left in overtime to give the Raptors a two-point lead. Doing this in Toronto as someone who grew up watching the Raptors is a moment of a lifetime, and Barrett deserves all the credit in the world for staying composed in such a high-pressure moment and making that shot.
But the game didn’t necessarily have to end that way. The Raptors had an 11-point lead going into the fourth quarter, but they allowed Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley to chip away at the deficit and eventually tie the game 104-104 with just over 11 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
Learning how to handle situations like this better is one of the big lessons the Raptors have to learn from this thrilling win.
“We’ve also got to learn how when we have a 10-point lead, how do we stay desperate in those moments?” Darko Rajaković said in the postgame media availability. “How do we make that 10-point lead a 15- or 20-point lead? We gotta stay in the moment and present and really compete every single possession down the stretch.”
They may not be able to recover from a lost lead like they did last night again, so it’s best to just avoid a repeat of that situation.
Let’s not forget how young and inexperienced this Raptors team is
Letting a 10-point lead slip away in the fourth quarter with the season on the line doesn’t look great. But we should still cut the Raptors’ some slack. Most of the players on the team are in their first playoff run and have never played in an elimination game in the NBA before.
With Brandon Ingram and Immanuel Quickley out and Jakob Poeltl only playing 22 minutes, the Raptors largely worked with a young, inexperienced rotation. Many times, RJ Barrett was the oldest Raptors player on the floor. Jamal Shead, Ja’Kobe Walter, and Collin Murray-Boyles all played at least 33 minutes despite only being in their second or first pro seasons. Even Scottie Barnes didn’t have a ton of playoff experience coming into this series.
So, there are bound to be some growing pains. This series is, above all, a learning experience for the Raptors. The Cavaliers are the more veteran team and the deeper team. Forcing them into a Game 7 with great defensive intensity and big offensive performances from Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett is a success in its own right. Winning the series would be the cherry on top for a young team that came into the playoffs without its starting point guard and with major offensive concerns.
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