To DeMar DeRozan
Dallas Goedert Jersey , regular-season and playoff basketball are as different as checkers and chess.
In LeBron James, DeRozan and the Toronto Raptors keep running into the ultimate grandmaster. Their inability to beat him might force coach Dwane Casey into a cruel checkmate.
Toronto’s postseason fizzled out against a familiar foe on Monday night when James and the Cleveland Cavaliers finished off back-to-back second-round sweeps of Toronto. It’s the third straight year the Cavs have bounced the Raptors from the playoffs.
After a franchise-record 59 wins, good for the top seed in the Eastern Conference, it was as tough a defeat as DeRozan has endured.
”This is probably the toughest, most frustrating, difficult, lowest feeling I’ve had,” DeRozan said Tuesday. ”You get to that point where you’re standing firm through everything and you feel like you can’t get knocked down again, and you realize you do get knocked back down again. It’s kind of the worst feeling.”
Teammate Kyle Lowry was equally gloomy, calling it a ”wasted year” in spite of Toronto’s historic achievements.
”We felt like we could possibly make the NBA Finals,” Lowry said. ”That was our goal.”
The series slipped away after a Game 1 loss in which the Raptors coughed up a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter, missed multiple potential winning baskets, and lost 113-112 in overtime.
Toronto nearly rallied to win Game 3, but James banked in a remarkable tie-breaking basket at the buzzer.
”There was opportunity there, we just didn’t seize it,” guard Fred VanVleet said. ”These playoffs will be in the back of our minds all summer.”
Casey has coached Toronto since 2011, leading the team to five straight playoff appearances and three consecutive 50-win seasons. The Raptors have set franchise-record win totals in three of the past four years and finished atop the East for the first time this year.
Toronto’s deepest playoff run came in 2016 when it lost to the eventual-champion Cavaliers in a six-game Eastern Conference Finals.
Neither Casey nor team president Masai Ujiri spoke to reporters Tuesday. Ujiri is expected to speak later this week, but no date has been set.
On Monday, Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said it would be ”absurd” for the Raptors to fire Casey.
Neither Lowry nor DeRozan directly endorsed Casey on Tuesday, but both spoke glowingly about their coach.
”All of my success
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Lowry acknowledged he and Casey have clashed over the years, but said he’s ”always believed in him.”
”He’s one of the best coaches out there,” Lowry said.
Lowry said he was frustrated the Raptors let the Cavs get ”way too comfortable” after Cleveland entered the second round worn down by a tough, seven-game series against Indiana.
”We weren’t ready to be as physical as we needed to be,” Lowry said. ”We did a great job in the regular season, but playoffs are just different.”
James is different, too, a generational talent who has represented the Eastern Conference in seven straight NBA Finals and is now one round away from reaching his eighth.
Lowry called LeBron ”one of the greatest players to ever play the game.”
Despite his disappointment, DeRozan said he won’t shy away from the challenge of facing James.
”As a competitor, we want to go up against that because the story is sweeter once you dethrone a great,” DeRozan said.
Unfortunately for the Raptors, they’re still looking for a way to unseat King James.
Here are some other things to watch as the offseason begins:
BENCHED
Toronto’s deep bench was held in check by Cleveland, which made sure to match LeBron against the Raptors’ reserves.
”We pretty much shredded almost every bench in the NBA throughout the regular season,” VanVleet said. ”We just didn’t get it done in the playoffs. Kind of true to our team in terms of underperforming when it mattered the most.”
PAINFUL PLAYOFFS
VanVleet, who injured his right shoulder in the regular-season finale and missed most of the first round, admitted he dealt with lingering pain throughout the playoffs.
”I’ve been lying to myself for the last two, three weeks just because I had plans on playing into June,” VanVleet said. ”It was something I just got accustomed to.”
VanVleet plans to visit a specialist in New York City within the next week to ensure his playoff minutes didn’t cause further damage to his shoulder.
FRED’S FUTURE
A restricted free agent this summer
Edwin Encarnacion Jersey , VanVleet said he’d be happy to remain a Raptor.
”I love it here,” he said. ”This is the place that gave me a chance, gave me an opportunity. I’m a loyal guy, I always have been. Hopefully things work out.”
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Maybe NFL teams got exhausted from scrambling to pick quarterbacks in the first round of the draft.
It took until the 76th overall slot Friday night, 44 picks after the last one, that Oklahoma State's Mason Rudolph was selected by Pittsburgh. The Steelers get a big, strong-armed, highly competitive QB 鈥?yep, sounds a lot like incumbent Ben Roethlisberger, who is 36 and closing in on the end of his championship career.
"It's not Ben's job to teach me anything. It's my job to learn," said Rudolph, who added he dreamed of becoming a Steeler.
Pittsburgh has had little success with backups for Big Ben, with another Oklahoma product, Landry Jones, never approaching the Roethlisberger level.
When Oklahoma State played at Heinz Field last year and won 59-21, Rudolph threw for five touchdowns in the first half.
Five quarterbacks went on Thursday night, from top overall pick Baker Mayfield (coincidentally, a Sooner) to Lamar Jackson of Louisville at No. 32. Then, nothing.
Until Rudolph, who was not on hand.
Rudolph will join James Washington
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"To go on to the next chapter with one of your brothers and the best receiver you've spent your whole college days with and maybe spend 15 years with," Rudolph said, "it's awesome."
Also not present when his name was called 59th overall by Washington was LSU running back Derrius Guice. Guice was among the 22 players on hand for the opening round, but he cleared out after not being chosen. The Redskins grabbed him well after the hard-running power back had departed.
"It did surprise me because a lot of the things came out of nowhere and weren't true," he said of sliding, reportedly for off-field character issues, "and I just didn't understand why me out of all people, because I'm great to everybody. I have a great personality and I just didn't understand why everything just hit so hard with me out of everybody.
"I'm just thankful to know that this whole process is over with, that an organization believed in me and trusted in me and I'm just ready to get to work."
Three other players not taken in the first round, Texas tackle Connor Williams, Iowa cornerback Josh Jackson, and UCF linebacker Shaquem Griffin, did stick it out. Williams, who didn't have far to go to be at home 鈥?he's from the Dallas area 鈥? will be staying in Big D because the Cowboys chose him 50th. He could wind up at guard.
His selection drew the loudest cheers of the night at AT&T Stadium, in contrast to how the locals greeted Dallas' first-rounder, Boise State linebacker Leighton Vander Esch, whose reception was cool at best.
"I was watching my phone and it got down to two minutes and I thought it had passed," Williams said. "My phone starts with 972 so I knew it was a Dallas area code, and I thought this can't be. I got on the phone and it was Cloud 9.
"It was definitely a roller coaster and it was up and down. But at the end of the day, it was all worth the wait. It was all worth it."
Jackson went 45th to Green Bay
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"It goes back to his awareness and IQ for the game," scout Alonzo Dotson said. "The speed never really worried us because he's just so smart and he's always in the right position to play the ball."
Griffin, who had his left hand amputated when he was a child, has had a spectacular offseason since helping UCF to an undefeated year. He's been a star at the combine and personal workouts, but having only one hand is clearly giving NFL teams pause and he did not go in the first 100 picks.
Among the schools that had no one chosen in the first three rounds were Michigan State, Wisconsin, Kansas State, Washington State and Nebraska. Yet South Carolina State, Sam Houston State, South Dakota State, Humboldt State and Fort Hays State each had a selection.
The most fun came when the Super Bowl champion Eagles got back at the host Cowboys verbally.
When Philadelphia selected a South Dakota State tight end named Dallas Goedert 鈥?no kidding, Dallas 鈥?the choice was announced by six-time Pro Bowl kicker David Akers. He needled Cowboys fans.
"Hey Dallas, the last time you were in the Super Bowl, these draft picks weren't born," Akers shouted.
Last year at the draft in Philly, former Cowboys star Drew Pearson gave a rousing and hilarious speech about his team before announcing a pick.
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