The Toronto Raptors lost Game 1, again. They played like the stage was too big, again. They turned the ferocious local love of this team into stunned and anxious silence, again. Happens every year, around this time. It’s like nature’s way of telling you it’s time to take the snow tires off.

But it doesn’t have to be destiny that they do this, unless they let it. The Raptors spent all year telling us they were different, and playing like they were different, and then when the real lights turned on, they weren’t.

“It’s different, man,” said shooting guard DeMar DeRozan, who shot 5-for-19 and got torched, along with everyone else, by Pacers star Paul George in a 100-90 Game 1 loss. “Different team, different moments. We’re not panicking. We understand, we just played bad.”

“We’re good, it’s one game,” said point guard Kyle Lowry, who shot 3-for-13, missed six of his seven three-pointers, missed five of nine free throws, and committed six of Toronto’s 20 turnovers. “It’s not last year.”

What did you think of Game 1?

Maybe all that’s true. Well, the part about it being one game is objectively true. The part about playing bad is true, clearly. When they say they will play better it seems likely to be true, if only because when you miss 49 shots, 15 of 19 threes, and 12 of 38 free throws while throwing the ball away like you get a tax deduction for it, it’s hard to play much worse.

But they played soft, losing basketball, and at some point you write your own story. General manager Masai Ujiri had deliberately tried to lower the temperature before this series. He didn’t venture out to the Square before Game 1 for some bold, profane, red-meat-to-the-Colosseum crowd. He has been declaring confidence in coach Dwane Casey for some time, and the idea that this is a make-or-break series for the franchise has been defused, at least publicly.

The pressure was here anyway, and it showed. DeRozan was swallowed up by Paul George, who is longer and stronger and better, and DeRozan never found an answer. Lowry said his elbow was “fine,” but if that’s the case he just played a sloppy, tentative, out-of-control game. Jonas Valanciunas was a roaring beast when he wasn’t in foul trouble, but he was in foul trouble more often than he wasn’t. Terrence Ross was floating somewhere in space, but Casey, on a jumbled afternoon for him, came back to him. The Joey Graham jersey in the crowd could have been a tribute.

It felt like history repeating, and maybe it’s because history was in the building. The core of this team — Lowry and DeRozan and Valanciunas and Patterson and Ross, and Casey as the coach — has lost seven consecutive playoff games over the last three years.

“As a whole I thought we were tight offensively, and that frustration carried over to the defensive end, and you can’t do that,” Casey said. “I don’t think the seven games or whatever had anything to do with it. I think it was the Indiana Pacers, and then the moment of the playoffs got us tight. I don’t think it had anything to do with the previous games.

“It wasn’t us. I hadn’t seen us play that tentative on the offensive end all year.”

It wasn’t a universal condition. Joseph, the San Antonio Spurs product, was precise and calm, and may have been Toronto’s best player in under 25 minutes of playing time. Biyombo was good, except that when he was in the game the Pacers could ignore him and blitz Toronto ballhandlers. DeMarre Carroll, while still on a minutes restriction, wasn’t a liability. He couldn’t guard Paul George but, on this day, who could?

No, Toronto could have won this game. But too many core pieces failed.

“People want to do so well sometimes that it might backfire,” said backup point guard Cory Joseph, who was probably Toronto’s best player. “But I mean, it’s just a little bit of human nature kicking in. But as we relax, we’ll play better.”

“We have to trust each other,” said Biyombo. “It seems like we played with too much pressure.”

“You just have to stay calm,” said Luis Scola, whose off-court contributions probably outweigh the on-court ones.

“It’s a long series, they have to beat us three more times to win the series. It’s going to be hard for any team to beat us three times, let alone four. Nothing really changed today.”

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This Pacers team can be had, and you could see it. All day, Toronto was a good three-minute stretch from blowing the game open, but it didn’t come. The Raptors say they’re different. They can still win this series.

But after one game, it looks like the Raptors are not just playing the Indiana Pacers anymore. It looks like they’re playing Washington and Brooklyn and Paul Pierce and their very own selves. The ghosts, they hover.

They don’t have to be the same old Raptors. They can be something other than the punchlines, the little guys, the suckers. They need to play basketball like it matters, but doesn’t matter too much. They need to take a deep breath, and play the guys in front of them. They don’t have to be the same old Raptors, even if they were.