4 is for ISO. So is 1, 2, 3 and 5.

Let me make this 100 percent clear:

Dwane Casey has been the best coach the Raptors have ever had. He led them to 56 wins this season. He has the respect of the locker room. His players always played hard. He made several pivotal decisions in Round 1 to help the Raptors advance. I would like him to be re-signed after this season. He’s earned it. The following is entirely about Game 4.

Let me also make this clear:

It’s up to the star players to perform. It’s not Casey’s fault that DeRozan shot poorly from the free-throw line (1–4), or that DeRozan flubbed easy layups, or that Kyle Lowry was off with the jumper (0–6 from 3). That’s not on Casey.

But Casey made several gambles that failed in Game 4 and it cost his team chance to jump 3–1 up on the Heat. Even with a floundering offense, even with Lowry fouling out late in regulation — the Raptors held a seven-point lead with four minutes left in the fourth quarter and they should have closed it out.

Isolations for Joseph

The two plays that stick out the most are the isolations Casey ran for Cory Joseph in the final seconds of the game.

The first look saw the Raptors inherit the ball up two with 40 seconds left and a full shot clock. Casey called timeout, had Joseph handle the play, then called for a half-hearted ball screen. Essentially, it was an isolation, and Joseph was forced into taking a tough fadeaway against a 6–7 defender in Justise Winslow. It missed.

The ensuing miss saw Dwyane Wade drive all the way down the court for a transition layup. Bismack Biyombo was inexplicably not in the game to protect the basket (which doesn’t make any sense considering the play was for Joseph to isolate.)

Wade’s bucket tied the game, but the Raptors still had a chance with 12 seconds left to win the game. Again, Casey called an isolation for Joseph. Again, no action on the ball or off the ball. Just a plain isolation for Joseph to take a stepback elbow jumper with the clock expiring that rimmed out.

The second play is somewhat understandable considering there’s tremendous defensive value in whittling the clock down to zero on the shot. But to run nothing on both sets, while also taking out Biyombo during the first timeout, cost the Raptors a glorious chance to win the game. All they needed was one basket. Instead Casey called for two isolations that went nowhere.

Bismack over DeRozan in OT

DeRozan’s right hand might be bothering him

Hindsight is 20/20, and if Casey were to have a mulligan, he’d probably take it on his pivotal decision to bench Biyombo in favor of DeRozan in overtime.

The calculus was this: Since Lowry had fouled out, the Raptors theoretically needed a shot creator in the game. Even with his struggles, DeRozan fit that bill. Conversely, Biyombo would have cramped what little spacing the Raptors had (although he could at least grab an offensive rebound.)

Casey picked DeRozan. It went horribly.

This is how it played out: Miami took five shots in the restricted area in overtime. They made three shots and grabbed two offensive rebounds. They could have used some rebounding and rim protection.

Meanwhile DeRozan looked utterly defeated. He had no confidence — especially since he sat for most of the fourth quarter as he watched his teammates build up a lead. He provided nothing on offense— save for a layup at the very end — while the Raptors sorely missed Biyombo’s defense.

Again, the decision obviously looks much worse in retrospect. But even in the moment, from as early as the last minute of overtime, benching Biyombo seemed like a horrendous decision. But even after multiple failed gambles down the stretch, even though DeRozan looked like a lifeless corpse for most of the game, Casey stuck with his guns, and it backfired.

Playing Bebe in the second half

The look says it all

I thought the idea to play Bebe Nogueira in the first half was rather risky, but since there was some upside, I understood the gamble.

But Casey should have seen enough from Bebe early on to know that it wasn’t a viable option for the second half — especially in the fourth quarter of a tight game.

Bebe made three positive plays early on, but then the Heat figured him out. He hugged Josh McRoberts like Stephen Curry up top and it allowed Miami to send cutters towards the rim with very little help. Bebe was lost in space and conceded several baskets where he should have helped in the first half.

Despite the poor first half showing, Bebe reemerged in the fourth quarter. Again, his defense was poor and Miami knew how to exploit his flighty decision-making to get easy shots around the basket. Finally, after giving up consecutive layups, Casey called timeout and yanked Bebe.

The damage was this: Toronto was outscored by seven points in the 13 minutes that Bebe played. And while that’s not a disaster, he shouldn’t have been trusted to come out of the second half — not when there were other options in Jason Thompson and James Johnson as his disposal — or just straight-up having Biyombo and Patterson split minutes at center. The gamble didn’t pay off early on and it bombed the second time.

More than anything else, it speaks to a failed game plan. Trying Bebe is fine — there’s plenty of upside with him if he can defend the basket. But to play a flighty second-year center significant minutes in the playoffs needs a credible break-in-case-of-emergency option and there was none.

Again, I want to make it clear that Casey did a wonderful job with this team this season, he should be re-signed, and it’s not his fault that his star players were so poor. But the three key decisions that did factor into Game 4? He blew those, and he blew a chance to jump up 3–1 in the series.