How sweet it is

By no means are the Raptors perfect. They weren’t even close to perfect in Game 7.

Save for the result, the finish was classic Hitchcock. Rising tension rose to a crescendo like a rolling tide rushing in from the horizon. Disaster was on its way and the Raptors were paralyzed by the moment. With every possession carelessly cast aside, time itself seemed to slow down so that fear could settle in, fluff the cushions, grab a beer, and truly set itself upon the hearts over every Raptors fan.

The Raptors led by 16 with seven minutes left. It looked like a sure victory — but only a fool would believe that.

Toronto did everything in its power to give that game away. Forget finishing the game with poise — they abandoned their entire strategy to run out the clock. They scored six points over the last 7:31 and two of those were free throws at the very end. Their only baskets came courtesy of certified madman Kyle Lowry recklessly launching himself into outer space for miraculous layups that then saw him smack down to the court in a pile of smoking wreckage. That was a crash landing.

It had all the feelings of an all-time collapse at the worst possible moment for the Raptors. But somehow, through the good graces of some truly perplexing decisions by the Pacers and the referees, they were spared from their fate.

They didn’t need perfect. They needed to survive.

I win a ring and I bring it home like I’m Cory Joe

The final buzzer was a cue that snapped the ACC out of its tense stupor: it’s time to celebrate. And we did. The ACC went fucking crazy.

Drake embraced the players. DeMar DeRozan had his family step onto the court. DeMarre Carroll went to pay his respects to Paul George. Masai Ujiri planted a kiss upon Dwane Casey’s head. All the while fans in the arena rose to a rousing ovation to match the bonanza outside the doors in Jurassic Park.

It was a celebration fit for a championship ceremony, and for a Raptors team teetering on the edge of blowing it up or keeping it going, winning the first round was essentially the championship.

It’s not good business to put everything on a few haphazard possessions, but those were the stakes. All year long, the Raptors’ goal was to finally win a round in the playoffs, and although it took seven games against a seven-seed they finally got the monkey off their backs which is all that matters.

They overcame their demons. The curse for future generations was to always be burdened by the weight of previous failures so history would repeat itself. But it didn’t. They broke the trend and finally took the first step.

Now it’s time to make an actual honest-to-goodness playoff run.

Real recognize real

What makes the moment isn’t the actual thrill of a two-seed winning in the first round. So to those on the outside, it’s hard to understand why we’re like this.

Start here: The history of the Raptors is hardship.

Even during the lusty romantic dalliance that was the Vince Carter era, the Raptors were not good. His teams set the bar at 47 wins, and there it sat for the longest time, right along with YouTube clips of Vinsanity taking flight, because that era was ultimately marked by Vince’s departure and the question of “what if?” rather than how it actually went down.

That was the theme for so long — that star players couldn’t wait to flee Canada back to where the good cable flowed freely. This country had eyes only for hockey, and it’s not like the Raptors were worth seeing.

Who really wants to see No. 1 pick Andrea Bargnani play at small forward alongside an overburdened Chris Bosh and a broken-down Jermaine O’Neal anyway? My sincere apologies to anyone who took in the Mike James and Jalen Rose era. And hey, does anyone remember Shawn Marion looking glum in a Raptors uniform? What about Hedo Turkoglu making more memories with pizza commercials and curt post-game interviews (“Ball”) than he did on the court? Oh man, Hakeem Olajuwon should have never taken the money and just retired.

The Raptors have been a fucking joke for two decades. They’re one of the worst franchises in NBA history.

But at least the support has always been there. Raptors fans might come off as a conceited bunch, complaining about a DeRozan miss after three-straight makes or slandering Dwane Casey for the most minute of coaching decisions, but understand that it comes from a place of love.

Millions of people actually watched that garbage for 82 games a season just for the chance of a Raptors team that would one day make us proud.

Nothing has ever come easy for this franchise, so we’re always on alert for the first sign of trouble. They’ve let us down before so we’re careful not to hope. It’s been put up or shut up for the longest time, and at last, they’ve shown us that it’s possible. No, they’re not perfect. But I’m proud of this team.

That it was so hard only makes it so much sweeter.