Opinion | Raptors go out with a whimper to end a season that had a lot of bang to it

That sure fizzled fast, didn’t it?

A tremendous game for a half and then – poof! – it was over almost in the blink of an eye, as we tried to explain a bit in the middle of the story right after the game.

Nick took the high road right after, as he should have.

“Listen, congratulations to them, first of all,” he said. “I thought they were certainly great in three of these games in this series, they were really great.

They shot it, the passed it really well in three of the games and tonight was one of them. Obviously, we (didn’t) guard at all in the second half, we (couldn’t) stop ’em. We’ve been stringing up a lot of sub-30s, 25 (point) quarters defensively and we don’t get any of them really tonight.”

He’s right. The Sixers were really good – James Harden looked re-born for a game – and the better team won the game. I’m not sure the better team won the series but Philadelphia did and it’ll be interesting to see how they far against Miami.

For Toronto, it was a terrible end to an overall terrific season. The disappointment now is real and it’ll take some time to get over but the future’s not all the bad.

There are holes to fill, without question, but there have been holes all year. That’s a summer job and it’ll take me today and maybe one day on the weekend to collect thoughts and scribble them all down.

All in due time.

For now, though, let’s do one last look at one last game, as painful as it was for fans and players and coaches.

Oh, and this: Don’t forget Sunday’s Ye Olde Mailbag and it’s looking very small at the moment. Clicking on [email protected] sometime today would be a good idea.

And, thanks to you all for playing along most of this season. It’s been a pleasure getting to know new friends, renew acquaintances with old ones and regret ones who aren’t around as much these days.

I’ve had fun, hope you did, too.

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THREE POINTERS
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Off to seek riches

Chris Boucher becomes a free agent in a couple of months and while his season was good, his final game was great and maybe that creates even more buzz for the contract talks.

Again, give me today and maybe the weekend to figure out exactly what I think the Raptors should do and a lot of it will depend on what role they envision for Boucher and what they want to pay him.

But he was really good in this series.

Said Nick: “When he gives that relentless energy like that, he can make a lot of good things happen. I mean, he was cutting and flying around and rebounding, I think he had six offensive rebounds by himself in the first half. If I remember right; yeah, something like that.

“He had a block shot on the three, just using his gifts like that and doing it. We really needed him because I thought we didn’t get much from some other areas tonight. So at least we got a huge night from him off the bench. He didn’t get much else off the bench tonight.

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to say need

The Raptors didn’t have enough shooting in November, they didn’t have enough in March and trying to get through late April without their most effective shooter – Fred VanVleet – was impossible.

Seven for 35 last night was awful, their worst game of the series at the worst possible moment.

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Siakam shines

Great game – well, most of it – from Pascal, a great series, really. And in the biggest moments, he was let down by his teammates to some degree.

And that mystified Nick.

“It was the other guys that didn’t make the right reads and that’s like that’s disappointing to me because like it’s something we work on like almost every single day to start practice,” he said of the way the Raptors handled the extra attention Siakam was got. “We work on blitz work and where to go and where to cut and where to move on and we just for whatever reason we would make the one pass and that guy would hold it and not make the next one and we just, and then when we did do it right, we’d missed the shot.

“So there was a lot of confidence lost playing against that when there shouldn’t be. I was pretty disappointed in that execution from us, but it goes in line with a lot of stuff tonight. We weren’t executing very well at either end.”

Toughnight. Tough night indeed.

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Okay, we’re all gathering to chew the fat with seven or eight players today – it’s a long and tedious day and it doesn’t generally yield much news, but it’s what we do.

And then? Then a stool. And then tomorrow to hang around Casa Doug and do nothing. And then who knows?

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COMPARTIR: