Raptors’ defence overcomes poor shooting in improbable Game 4 win 

TORONTO — It’s not uncommon in the theatre of sport to turn the improbable into, well, probable.

Athletes achieve heroic feats on a near-daily basis, and the NBA is no stranger to that.

And if you retort that the Jamaicans have routinely competed in bobsled at the Winter Olympics since 1988, I’d say that’s my point.

Because on one hand, what the Raptors accomplished was, in fact, historically improbable.

They were the first team in playoff history to win a game despite shooting under 14 per cent from beyond the arc on 20-plus attempts. Teams to clank as many deep balls as Toronto did (4-of-30) were 0-14 before Sunday.

For added context, only three teams have attempted at least 30 triples and made four or fewer in the playoffs — the other two lost by an average margin of 26.5 points. Toronto won by four.

And yet, this wasn’t even the first time the Raptors won a game shooting as poorly as they did. They’re now 8-4 this season when making less than 26 per cent of their threes.

So, how have the Raptors defied those odds so routinely?

“It’s the grind and the fight that we had,” head coach Darko Rajakovic said after his team tied the series on Sunday. ” … All the stuff that we preach night in and night out came out to win the game tonight.”

“Grind” and “fight” manifested in a defensive showing so great that it overcame an offensive outing that should never be rewatched unless it’s by the Raptors in their upcoming film sessions. Toronto’s 34.0 effective field-goal percentage was the lowest by a winning team in a playoff game since 1978, per NBA statistician Keerthika Uthayakumar.

“(Rajakovic) kept saying the offence is going to come, just do our thing on defence and it was going to stem from that,” Rookie Collin Murray-Boyles said after his 15-point, 10-rebound, two-steal performance.

“I was lying. I told them we were going to shoot better in the second half, but we did not,” Rajakovic said. “We’ll leave that for the next game, but whatever it takes, just find a way to win the game.”

And what it took was holding the league’s No. 5 offence since the all-star break to a season-low 89 points on 36.8 per cent shooting. Made even more impressive by the fact that this came from the same team that was shredded for 120.5 points through Games 1 and 2 — the most allowed by any playoff team.

“It’s kind of what they do,” Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson explained of a Raptors team that ranked fifth in the NBA for defensive rating in the regular season. “They’ve got some elite perimeter defenders, and they created a lot of chaos out there. It’s not just one defender, you’re dealing with a lot of swarm — it’s kind of a swarming defence. So when you do get in their teeth, they’re all over you … that’s their identity.”

The Cavaliers were also forced into 18 turnovers for 17 points, and for a second game in a row, the biggest culprit was the usually sure-handed James Harden, who followed up his eight-turnover performance with seven more on Sunday.

The Raptors list of defensive highlights from Game 4 was so long it could’ve substituted as an attendance check for the Raptors. Which felt right given Rajakovic made sure to praise his team’s “depth” pre-game.

Whether it was Scottie Barnes, who personified guarding one-through-five as he spearheaded the defensive showcase with a game-high four stocks (steals plus blocks) to go with his 23 points. The franchise forward spent most of his time toggling between shutting down Harden (19 points on 6-of-14) and Donovan Mitchell (20 points on 6-of-24).

There was also Jamal Shead, who sent Scotiabank Arena into a frenzy when he dove at Mitchell in the final minute of the fourth quarter to force an eight-second violation. The sophomore guard might have been the only one in the building of 19,800-plus even thinking about the possibility of making that play in such a high-leverage spot.

“Jamal is a smart player,” Barnes said. “Having the clock awareness in that split second to make that read, just shows how smart he is … him staying calm in those moments when it’s his first time being there, it goes to show how good of a player he is and how he helps our team.”

Even Brandon Ingram, who has been the poster boy of offensive struggles this series, left that aside for one game and got in on the defensive hustle with a pair of strip steals on Evan Mobley, who, along with Jarrett Allen, combined for just 11 points on 5-of-16 shooting.

Then came the moment that encapsulated the Raptors’ effort best.

After Barnes hit a pair of free throws, the Cavaliers had the ball with 20 seconds left and the chance to tie the game with a triple.

Toronto’s star forward tracked Harden full court, who then conceded his part of the possession and bounced it ahead to a curling Mitchell. The Cavs guard was met by Murray-Boyles, who went unfazed by Mitchell’s bag of dribble moves, and forced an errant three-point attempt from beyond the arc that clanked off the rim and out of bounds.

The rookie made sure to follow Mitchell as he dove into the crowd to try and recover his miss, just to let the vet know he’d been clamped up.

“We just never, never flinched,” Rajakovic explained. “We continued guarding and guarding.”

With the series 2-2 heading back to Cleveland on Wednesday, there’s no doubt the Raptors will need to continue guarding, and hopefully make more shots along the way.

But even if they don’t, winning anyway doesn’t seem improbable.