The Toronto Raptors were pushed to the brink with a 125-120 defeat in Game 5 on Wednesday, now they have to win on home court on Friday to survive and force a Game 7.
The Raptors played a nearly-perfect first half in Game 5 against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday, scoring 74 points in a dominant offensive showing to take a seven-point lead into halftime.
They could not sustain that performance into the second half, putting up 46 points over the final two frames, owed partially to injuries suffered by star forwards Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram.
The health of those two players will be a key factor in Game 6 on TSN on Friday. You can watch the Raptors take on the Cavaliers LIVE on TSN1/4/5, TSN.ca and the TSN App, with coverage starting at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT.
Ingram, 28, has had an up-and-down series by his standards - after averaging 21.5 points per game in 77 games in the regular season, the two-time All-Star has averaged just 12 points per game in this series. He described the Raptors’ 115-105 loss in Game 2 in Cleveland as the “worst game of [his] life” after putting up seven points on 3-of-15 shooting.
In Game 5, he scored just one point before departing with heel inflammation in the second quarter.
“Brandon, as you guys know, he’s been dealing with his heel. He re-aggravated it on one play [in the first half],” Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic said after the game on Wednesday. “At half time, he tried to reactivate it, see if he could play the second half, and he was not able to.”
The 24-year-old Barnes, an All-Star this season for the second time in his career, played 39 minutes in the loss in Game 5, but was clearly hobbled by a quadriceps injury he sustained in the first half. After scoring 14 points and adding eight assists in a brilliant first half of the game, Barnes totalled just three points and three assists in the second half.
“I think having him not be 100 per cent hurt us at the end,” guard Jamal Shead said after the loss. “But I think we were still right there. With him being hobbled, with [Ingram] being out, we were still right there.”
Barnes said, “it ain’t nothing” when describing the injury after the game, adding that he will be ready for Game 6 on Friday. Ingram was listed as questionable for Game 6, while Barnes was not on the injury report.
With Barnes and Ingram unable to contribute to their fullest capability in the second half, it forced others to try to step up in their absence. Shead and Ja’Kobe Walter combined to shoot 10-of-14 from the field, and 7-of-11 from three-point range in the first half for 27 points, but the duo could not replicate that production in the second half, shooting 4-of-17 and 3-of-13 from long range.
The Raptors pointed to the efforts of those players stepping up as a positive moving forward, even if the results did not work out.
“I don’t take it for granted. I think it’s very, very special how this group is resilient,” Rajakovic said. “It’s easy to say after we win the game by four points (on Sunday), we’re resilient. I thought we were a very resilient team tonight as well, even though we lost over here. We were constantly trying to find ways, finding different lineups, finding guys who can help us win the game.”
“I think we should be encouraged with all that happening and we were still in position to win the game,” guard RJ Barrett, who finished with a team-high 25 points in Game 5 said. “That’s a testament to everybody on our team. We’ve always had a next-man-up mentality. Obviously, we love those guys and need those guys. Whatever the situation may be, we’re gonna go out there, we’re gonna play together, we’re gonna fight and give it everything we have.”
