Grey's Anatomy / NHL Hockey / IndyCar / iTunes / James Dean
WASHINGTON - For most professional athletes, there's a certain level of delusion that is required in the job description.
That's not to say they're uninformed or unaware people, necessarily. On the contrary, in fact.
A player on a losing team, for instance, knows he's on a losing team. He's still expected to be in uniform and ready to compete at a high level on game day, doing what he can to help his team win, even if it's a fruitless endeavour (see: the 76ers of Philadelphia). He can't mail it in, he can't sulk, he can't acknowledge the hopelessness of his situation, at least not publicly. He shouldn't, anyway. It's part of the gig.
Remember this before rolling your eyes at Raptors players and personnel, who - for at least another 24 hours - will be dancing around the obvious: their season is over.
"We're still going out there to play," said DeMar DeRozan, just before his team's practice at George Washington University on Saturday afternoon. "There's still an opportunity for us to keep it going. We all understand that."
"We all understand what's at stake," the Raptors guard continued, a day after their 106-99 loss, gifting the Wizards a 3-0 advantage and the chance to sweep their first-round series on Sunday. "Nobody's ready to go home. Nobody's ready to start no summer, none of that. We're ready to go out here, keep this thing going, and take it game by game."
They all know the magnitude of their situation and the insurmountable odds that are stacked up against them going into Game 4. No team has ever overcome an 0-3 deficit to win a playoff series. Why can't they be the first? They'll give it a shot like the 110 0-3 teams before them, because, what else are they supposed to do?
"For us, it's do-or-die, it's Game 7, every possession is Game 7 and that's what we have to play to, a do-or-die situation," said Dwane Casey, before clarifying the obvious. "And die doesn't mean we're going to die, die means the series is over, another year of our developing process, growth as a team, as an organization."
They're all dealing with that realization differently, which is to be expected. As some shouted F-bombs in the shower following Saturday's defeat, DeRozan sat by his locker, head in his hands, staring into the abyss. He slept a couple hours that night, at most.
"By far [the toughest situation we've been through]," he admitted the next day. "Especially with what's at stake, being in the playoffs. Most definitely."
Amir Johnson was in a much different mood, whimsical, almost facetiously avoiding the gravity of the moment.
"How are you feeling?" he was asked.
"I'm feeling good, are you feeling good? I feel great. I feel solid. This morning feels pretty good, right?"
How did he sleep?
"I slept fine. I had a good meal, some chicken wings. It was pretty solid. I decided to have some milk and cookies, which put me right out."
Johnson, like Lou Williams and several others on the end of the bench, will hit unrestricted free agency this summer and could be playing their last game as a Raptor on Sunday. But given how this series has gone, following a mediocre second half to the regular season, the same could be said for most of the roster and coaching staff.
Delusion has and continues to get the better of this team. Despite the many red flags that surfaced during their mid-season nosedive - a broken defence, lack of offensive creativity and inconsistent play, among others - most players simply chalked it up to a brief slump, a blip on the radar, bump in the road. Confident they could flip a switch come playoff time, many of those concerns went unaddressed, only to rear their head again this spring.
"I think everything that could go bad for us has went bad for us in these three games," said DeRozan, who is not alone in that sentiment, many of them feel this way. "Luck has got to turn for us at some point. We faced it all year. We've been in situations where we had to get out of [adverse situations] and win. We just haven't been blessed with that opportunity yet in the playoffs. We're still optimistic about that happening."
After shooting over 50 per cent in the first quarter of Friday's "must-win" Game 3 (thanks in large part to DeRozan's 8-for-11, 20-point performance), Toronto hit just 32 per cent of its shots the rest of the night. DeRozan made just three of 18, Kyle Lowry: three of 17. The second half, in particular, was a mess. Reprehensible decision making and shot selection, little-to-no ball movement, kept the Raptors from seizing control, even with Washington unable to put the game away.
It was the Raptors' offence at its worst, but it was all too familiar.
Toronto ranked third in offensive efficiency during the season, which is impressive, yet misleading given the unreliable, unpredictable nature in which most of their scoring is created. Most are tough, low percentage shots that the team - even to this day - considers to be good looks.
"No, I don't mind us taking that many shots because it was in the flow of the game," Lowry insisted. "At the end of the day, me and DeMar and Lou [Williams] are the scorers and we have to be aggressive. No matter how many shots we make or not, we are going to take shots that we normally take and we work on."
"I can count so many shots that I missed, that the bigs missed, the rest of the wings missed, that we normally make," DeRozan said. "Especially easy shots, easy floaters, shots in the paint. Kyle missed a lot of his easy threes, ones he normally hits. It's been tough. Like I said, that's what is keeping us upbeat, knowing if we hit this rhythm [Sunday], anything is possible."
And so we go on like this, until their fate finally catches up with them.
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