Fifty-one weeks ago, Toronto Raptors President Masai Ujiri announced it was time for a cultural reset. Just before the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers faced off last year's NBA Finals, the All-Star duo of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan met with Head Coach Dwane Casey in Oakland to strike a pact.

Things would be different.

In previous years, the Raptors won 48, 49, 56 and 51 games with an Eastern Conference Finals appearance under their belt. Through it all, a LeBron-sized cloud loomed over the franchise. Regular season wins were cool and all, but for Toronto to resuscitate a dimming aura, something had to give.

On Oct. 19, the Raptors tipped off against the Chicago Bulls, setting about erasing the stench from their profile. Lowry and DeRozan scaled back their minutes, shots, and touches. The ball started to flow and young bench players like Fred VanVleet, Delon Wright and rookie OG Anunoby blossomed into bona fide impact players.

This season's Raptors leapt from 51 wins to a franchise-record 59. Game-by-game, W after W, the tide slowly turned on the public's perception of the Raptors. With a less is more approach from Lowry and DeRozan, and the rise of a versatile, potent bench, questions morphed from “should Toronto blow it up?” to “Are the Raptors suddenly odds on favorites in a wide open East?”.

When the Washington Wizards tied their first round series up at 2-2, the “same old Raptors” rumbles started. Toronto swiftly squashed the murmurs, slamming the door on the eighth seed with consecutive double-digit wins.

The old Raptors were dead, long live the Raptors.

Even curmudgeons like TV talking head Charles Barkley was all in, declaring the Raps Finals bound.

It took 357 days for the Raptors to complete their cultural reset. And only 52 minutes and 23 seconds for LeBron James and his Cavaliers to kick it all to dust.

Cleveland trailed by 14 in the first half, never led in the first 48 minutes, and the deficit was 10 with under 10 minutes remaining in regulation.

Then it all fell apart.

Lebron James (26 points, 11 rebounds, 13 assists, two blocks and a steal) hit the final two buckets of regulation, including one final tough fadeaway with Anunoby draped all over him to tie the game at 105 with 30 seconds left.

Cleveland survived five frantic Toronto misses in the final seven seconds of regulation. Kyle Korver’s three less than a minute into overtime gave the Cavaliers a 108-105 lead in overtime, completing the nightmare for the Raptors and their fans alike.

For a franchise that spent 4,680+ hours dedicating themselves to being a new form of themselves; the last 12 minutes of Game 1 felt eerily like waking up in the same old hell.

This season, per Basketball Reference, Toronto forged the league’s fifth stingiest defense, while the Cavaliers ranked 29th. Yet five Cavs scored in double figures, while the Raptors missed 15 of their last 18 shots. All-Star Kevin Love combined with the three key mid-season additions (Rodney Hood, George Hill, and Jordan Clarkson) to shoot an abysmal 8-for-32 from the floor, yet the Cavs outscored Toronto 31-20 in the last 15 minutes of play.

All of the good will and confidence the previous 88-game sample size provided for Raptor’s Nation evaporated as Toronto crumbled down the stretch. Per FiveThirtyEight, they weren’t just unlucky, they were historically unraveled.

“Toronto shot 5-for-25 (20 percent) from the field during the final period of regulation, including an agonizing 3-for-17 on shots in the restricted area. According to ESPN’s Stats & Information Group, those 14 restricted-area misses were the most by any team in any quarter in the last 20 postseasons.”

The reaction from around the blogosphere and social media was predictably nihilistic.

 

https://twitter.com/IamHarshDave/status/991522466102169600

Letting Game 1 get away is deflating, but all hope is not lost for the Raptors. They’ve spent the season crafting a revamped offensive and defensive attack and they cannot allow a one-game setback to shake their belief in their core tenets.

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Toronto has to pick up the defensive intensity. A measly two steals for a team of stocked with rangy athletes (Pascal Siakam, Delon Wright) and physical defenders (Kyle Lowry, OG Anunoby) won’t get the job done.

Getting Kyle Korver under wraps is imperative, as well. Korver, who has made his career as an efficient sniper, has been Cleveland’s second most damaging offensive force, averaging 14.2 points and draining 19 of 43 treys in their five wins so far this postseason.

His constant off-ball motion strains and distorts defenses, giving Lebron James precious space to operate. For long stretches, Demar DeRozan was tasked with tracking Korver and the breakdowns were fatal. Korver shook loose for 19 points and drained five triples, with at least two of those being embarrassingly wide open. Casey should levy a $10,000 fine to the lax defender who detaches himself from Kyle Korver’s hip moving forward.

And while the new-look Raptor offense distributes responsibilities like never before, the two All Stars have to live up to that billing.

Kyle Lowry had a nice looking stat line (18 points, 10 assists, 3-6 from three), but went almost 19 minutes of floor time without scoring. Lowry also shot a mere three free throws. For the Raptors to have a prayer, he’ll need to up his aggression.

DeMar DeRozan (22 points, seven rebounds, five assists, three blocks) stuffed the stat sheet, but with the game on the line, he passed up several good looks for Serge Ibaka and Fred VanVleet threes (they ended up a combined 1-for-8 from beyond the arc).

For all of the hand-wringing, one game does not a series make. Lebron James and his Cavs seem to have Toronto’s’ number, but this isn’t the Cavs-Raps showdowns of yesteryear. Kyrie Irving’s scoring acumen is sorely missed in Cleveland and the youthful exuberance of the Toronto’s bench adds a new wrinkle to the chess match.

With Game 1 in the rearview and Game 2 on the horizon, the Raptors have plenty of time to regroup. The biggest changes will be mental, not schematic. Coach Casey has to get his team to not just talk the confident talk, but fully walk the walk and evict LeBron from the space he’s occupied in their collective head, rent-free. In year 15, LeBron is still humming along but the Cavaliers' framework around him is more vulnerable than ever.

Toronto has between three and six more games to solve the Cavaliers conundrum. Will they finally burst through the Lebron roadblock? Or will time run out on the Raptors' overhaul?