Plenty to be gained by extending this series

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Down 3-0 in an NBA series is walking dead territory.

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No team in the history of the Association has ever gone down 3-0 in a playoff series and come back to win.

A total of 143 teams have had that chance, and none have crawled out of that hole.

So, if the Raptors are to do so, they would make history.

We’ve learned never to count this team out.

That said, for the purposes of this column let’s just accept that they become team No. 144 to try only to fall short.

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The question then becomes, why bother trying?

Why not just get it over with on Saturday and get on with the off-season?

All three previous times the Raptors have been in this position, being down 3-0 – 2018 vs. the Cavs in the Eastern Conference semis, 2017 again vs. the Cavs in the Eastern Conference semis, and finally in 2015 vs. Washington in the Eastern Conference first round — they have succumbed to the pressure and were swept.

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Only once in team history have they been the team up 3-0 in a series and finished it off and that was in the Bubble in 2020 when they swept the Nets out in the first round.

So why push now to extend this, well, apart from the obvious chance to become the first ever NBA team to turn a series on its head?

Well, there are a few answers.

First, there is a basic pride that every professional athlete has or, in rare instances, has somehow hidden that glaring oversight in their competitive DNA to reach the pinnacle of their profession.

Fred VanVleet mentioned it Wednesday night.

“We’re playing for our pride,” he said. “Our pride is on the line.”

But there are tangible benefits to extending this series too, even if it’s for only one more game.

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This team came into this series knowing full well they had plenty to learn about playoff basketball and therefore plenty to gain from the experience.

Precious Achiuwa experienced firsthand how quickly a great NBA playoff performance can go to being memorable for all the wrong reasons on Wednesday.

Achiuwa is one of the young Raptors gaining playoff experience. In his second year in the NBA and getting his first real taste of the playoffs — he was on the court for a grand total of 12 minutes of post-season play in his rookie year with Miami — Achiuwa was having the game of his life until he went to the line with 27.5 seconds left to play in regulation and missed both.

As it turned out one make would have sufficed and got the Raptors a win, but it was not to be.

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Now obviously everyone misses free throws by times for any number of reasons.

Only Achiuwa knows why he missed those particular two shots, but experiences like that stay with a person and push them to make sure they aren’t repeated.

VanVleet expects Achiuwa will get better from the experience, even if it stings at the moment.

“He’s a huge reason why we were even in the picture tonight with his defence, his cutting to the rim,” VanVleet said. “He made two threes maybe. Yeah. He had a blocked shot and a couple of big dunks. He was 9-for-11 from the field. Off the bench, that’s incredible. For a young guy to have a breakout performance like that is big for him. He’ll lose some sleep over the free throws as we all do. We’ve all been there, but we got to bounce back and get better from it.”

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Of course, it’s not just Achiuwa who can benefit from the extra playoff exposure.

Gary Trent Jr. plays and comports himself like he’s been in the league for a decade, but Wednesday was the first game this series he was able to be himself having been slowed by a non-COVID illness in Games 1 and 2.

This is just his second playoff series in his young career and first as a starter. There are still plenty of playoff firsts to come for him and the sooner he experiences them, the better player he will become.

And then there’s rookie Scottie Barnes, the future of the organization and the primary reason the longer the series can be extended the better for the Raptors.

Barnes, in his only game of the series before it ended prematurely with a sprained left foot, looked like the kind of player just built for the playoffs.

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Never having experienced it before, Barnes stepped on the floor for Game 1 and immediately embraced the physicality and the heightened intensity of each and every possession that separates playoff basketball from the regular season.

Barnes got all of 32 minutes of that experience falling two rebounds shy of a triple double no less before injury denied him the past two games.

He’s expected to be back in the fold for Game 4 and anything beyond that is only going to have him even better prepared for his next playoff experience.

“Listen, we need more games,” Nurse said. “We’ve got to figure out a way to dig in there Saturday afternoon and figure out how to get more games because I think you can see again some obviously valuable time out there for Precious OG (Anunoby), Chris (Boucher). Those guys need these moments.”

And then beyond all that there’s the chance to deny Joel Embiid that sweep he so desperately wants.

Yeah, that would be nice too.

Tipoff goes at 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon at Scotiabank Arena.

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