Written by Mike Mazzeo at Espn.com
There was no inspirational speech at the end of the third quarter.
Kyle Lowry didn’t think his teammates needed to hear one.
“Before the fourth started, Bismack Biyombo was about to say something and try to bring us in, but I just told the group, there’s no need to talk, we just have to go play,” Lowry told ESPN.com after the Toronto Raptors completed the greatest comeback in franchise playoff history.
“I didn’t even say it disrespectfully. I just said, ‘Let’s go play.’”
The Raptors trailed the Indiana Pacers by 13 points heading into the final period. They were left for dead and buried. Nothing had gone right. Patrick Patterson was ineffective in his first playoff start while Paul George was unstoppable no matter what defender Toronto put on him.
For a Raptors fan base that has endured so much misery over the years, it really was “Here we go again.”
Another letdown.
Another disappointment.
A third consecutive first-round exit loomed for the favored Raptors.
But rather miraculously, none of that ended up happening, because Toronto coach Dwane Casey decided to go into desperation mode and trot out a small lineup that had never played a single minute together all season: Lowry, Biyombo, Cory Joseph, Terrence Ross and Norman Powell.
Analytics be damned.
“We were getting our butts kicked, and I thought we were going to go down with the guys that were swinging,” Casey said. “They were just scrapping and that is what the playoffs are about.”
The comeback began with George resting on the bench. It ended with him on the floor.
Galvanized by going one-in and four-out, the Raptors kicked off the fourth quarter on a 21-2 run and stole Game 5 from the Pacers, 102-99, on Tuesday night in front of a raucous sellout crowd at Air Canada Centre.
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