When last the Raptors found themselves in the second round of the NBA playoffs, back in 2001, their starting power forward had recently achieved a unique level of NBA fame.

Charles Oakley, though he was 37 years old at the time and nearly a decade removed from his only all-star season, had always been known for both his defensive savvy and streetwise toughness. But he’d also become increasingly recognized for his quotable meanderings of mysterious gruffness. A year earlier Sports Illustrated had even coined a term for his unique brand of mumbled locker-room wisdom: Oakspeak.

Once, after Oakley was facing an impending suspension for slugging Clippers guard Jeff McInnis during what remains the most memorable morning shoot-around in team history, Oakley refused to cop to the allegations: “Just because there’s glass on the highway, does that mean there was an accident?”

Another time, he summed up one of the tenets of his life philosophy: “If it ain’t broke, don’t break it.”

Your call!

Speaking over the phone on Friday, Oakley had a similarly plain-spoken message for Raptor all-stars DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry. To sum it up: If you can’t make a shot, don’t shoot it.

“They’re taking too many shots,” Oakley was saying. “My thing is, if you’re off, do something else. They can’t do nothing else. Play some defence. Pass the ball. Come on, man. What’s going on with (DeRozan) and Lowry?”

It’s certainly the question of the moment in Toronto. And Thursday’s Toronto victory in overtime, though it deadlocked the best-of-seven series with the Miami Heat at a game apiece, only produced more offshoots of that central head scratcher. Why, for instance, would Lowry, who’s shooting 16 per cent from three-point range for the playoffs, choose a 28-foot prayer as his buzzer-beater of choice when the Raptors had the ball with 10.5 seconds left in regulation in a tie game?

And, even worse, why would DeRozan, on a night he was suffering with a thumb injury that reduced him to a pathetic 2-for-8 free-throw shooter, decide to jack up a game-high 24 field-goal attempts, of which he missed 15? Perhaps DeRozan was attempting to lend new meaning to the phrase “sticking out like a sore thumb.”

Oakley harrumphed when he considered the black hole of basketball acumen residing on Bay Street.

“Man, they’re bad,” Oakley said. “Can’t beat nobody off the dribble. Can’t make a shot … Do something else.”

This is precisely what Raptors head coach Dwane Casey has been saying since the playoffs began and the Indiana Pacers unfurled the blueprint for shutting down Toronto’s shot-happy duo. Casey has been encouraging his two best players to distribute the ball more, to not allow their poor offence affect their defence — to be better, smarter all-round players. If it’s safe to say Casey’s urgings aren’t having the desired effect, maybe it’s no surprise the coach sounded on Friday as though he’d given up seeking change.

“They’re our go-to guys. They carried us all year,” Casey told reporters. “It’s tough to say to them, just stop shooting and start looking for everyone else.”

It’s certainly tough to keep saying the same thing to a couple of co-conspirators clearly intent on staying their uni-dimensional course. Lowry, to be fair, has done a better job of varying his attack, chipping in with six assists in Game 2. DeRozan, on the other hand, has spent much of the playoffs dribbling himself into difficult shot after difficult shot, making few while learning less. According to data on NBA.com, 47 per cent of DeRozan’s post-season field-goal attempts have been launched under what the league defines as “very tight” or “tight” defence. He’s shooting a combined 22 per cent in those situations and 34 per cent for the playoffs.

“We have to live with some of their tough shots,” Casey said. “We need them to be there as a threat of scoring as much as anything else. Again, it’s not like we haven’t seen those things change from game to game for certain players. I’m confident it will (change) for those two.”

Oakley, who said he plans to be in Toronto for Wednesday’s Game 5, has been a topic of recent social-media fascination for a Wednesday Twitter blast aimed at Charles Barkley, his playing-days contemporary who is now the most popular commentator in the sport. In the tweet, Oakley urged Barkley to “stop talking s--- about Cleveland,” Oakley’s hometown, this after Barkley had suggested members of the Atlanta Hawks should “take somebody out” during the Cavaliers’ blowout win over the Hawks.

Barkley has since dismissed Oakley as “not important enough for me to think about.”

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“(Expletive) him,” Oakley said of Barkley on Friday.

Oakley was calling moments after he’d finished an ESPN radio interview in which he’d offered more thoughts on Barkley. In that interview, Oakley dismissed the TNT studio program Barkley headlines as “a comedy show.” He said Barkley and his cohorts don’t deliver the fans “knowledge they should know about the game.”

Added Oakley to ESPN: “They play around, joke around — and the game ain’t like that.”

Thursday’s Raptors game certainly was no laughing matter in Oakley’s eyes.

“It’s ugly. I’m glad they won (Thursday) night, but I don’t know about (Games 3 and 4) in Miami,” Oakley said. “(DeRozan and Lowry) don’t have it. It’s a different basketball. These guys are just shooting to be shooting.”

Indeed, as Oakley once said in his quotable prime, speaking of the flagging fortunes of a different Raptors team: “You can’t throw a hook on the side of the road and expect to catch a fish in the grass.”

Asked for a prediction for Game 3, you could nearly hear the old Oak Tree, 52, shaking his head over the phone.

Said Oakley: “Whoever’s going to score the most points on a bad shooting night is going to win, right or wrong.”

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