Raptors season comes to an end with dizzying loss to Bulls in play-in game

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This long, strange Toronto Raptors season is over. And boy, was it strange.

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It was hard to figure which Raptors team would show up on any given night in a 41-41 regular season, so why should anything change for Wednesday’s do-or-die NBA play-in game against the Chicago Bulls? Fittingly, the great and awful editions of these Raptors were on hand on the same night. The former built a 19-point lead and appeared to be in full control, while the latter looked like a group that had never even went to the free throw line before and more closely resembled the team that couldn’t score efficiently in the half-court all year.

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In the end, with a change to tie it up in the dying seconds, Pascal Siakam — so strong for most of the evening — misfired on two of three free throw attempts after being fouled behind the line and the Bulls would escape with a 109-105 win.

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The game could have gone either way — as surprising as that would have seemed at halftime — but Raptors legend DeMar DeRozan hit a free throw with 28.7 seconds left to put Chicago up by three and Zach LaVine free throws followed a Siakam slam dunk with 19.7 seconds to go. LaVine finished with 39 points, 17 of them in a third quarter that should have marked the end of the Bulls.

Siakam finished with 32 points, nine rebounds and six assists, but missed 5-of-11 free throws. Toronto shot just 50% on its 36 attempts at the line. The previous season-low had been 58.3%.

DeRozan scored 23, Fred VanVleet 26 for the Raptors, with 12 rebounds and eight assists.

A Friday reunion in Miami with Kyle Lowry was going to happen one way or the other. Either it would be DeRozan and his Bulls heading there with a playoff spot against Milwaukee on the line, or it would be Lowry’s long-time teammates in Toronto. Siakam and VanVleet, who both consider Lowry a close friend and mentor. They did their part in an effort to be the ones taking their talents to South Beach for a night, but in the end, it was LaVine who was the difference.

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On this night, the atmosphere at Scotiabank Arena was not as buzzy as in past playoff series, but it had more juice than a typical regular-season game. The NBA play-in exists somewhere in between, as the coaches of both teams ended up referring to a bit in their pre-game media availabilities. Billy Donovan, of the Bulls, said while many have likened the play-in to a Game 7 type of contest, since it’s also a win-or-go-home affair, there are differences. For one, the animosity and coaching tic-tac-toes of a long series simply can’t be there, since play-ins are one-offs. Counterpart Nick Nurse agreed, noting, “The difference is that neither coach is sure what is gonna be thrown at him. When you get through six games, things change a lot. Even Game 6 to 7, you might put in four new sets that you’ve noticed that could probably get you two or three buckets out of the four.”

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“What happens tonight is we don’t know where they’re coming from, they don’t know where we’re coming from as far who is gonna guard who. There is a lot of flexibility. Both teams can match up lots of ways here … and you’re going to have to make a lot of adjustments on the fly.”

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The most notable adjustment the Bulls had to make was to rein in their surprise in seeing one of the NBA’s least scary offences suddenly morph into a powerhouse. Other than poor work at the free throw line through three quarters, the Raptors surprisingly got what they wanted. Siakam was nearly unstoppable and VanVleet’s outside prowess made up for his teammate’s struggles to sink three-pointers.

Maybe the playoff-play-in difference helped the Raptors get over a mental hurdle of some sort. Various Raptors teams of the past had gone just 6-16 in the first game of playoff series.

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DeRozan, of course, was a key part of many of those teams, but was solid in this one, even with O.G. Anunoby draped all over him. It was his teammates, other than a scorching LaVine, who let him down until the fourth. The Bulls shot an atrocious 4-20 on three-point shots to start the game, but then connected on three of six from there.

Despite that bad first half, the visitors had a chance to go into the break down only six, but Jakob Poeltl made a big block and VanVleet followed with a three-pointer from the logo at half-court at the buzzer and momentum was firmly in the home side’s favour. Toronto led by 11, largely on the strength of uncharacteristically great three-point shooting.

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But they cooled from there, LaVine did the opposite and the Bulls pulled it out.

There’s a chance this was the final game as Raptors for some notable players. VanVleet, Gary Trent Jr. and Jakob Poeltl will each become unrestricted free agents this summer (it’s considered a formality that the two guards will opt out of their player options for 2023-24). O.G. Anunoby is a year out from free agency of his own and was one of the hottest names in the NBA’s rumour mill at the trade deadline. Siakam can sign an extension this year or next, or also become a free agent when Anunoby does.

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Veterans Thaddeus Young and Will Barton, who didn’t even play at all on Wednesday, aren’t expected back.

And of course there’s head coach Nurse, who mused about his future a couple of weeks ago and may seek a new coaching challenge.

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