Name five things more difficult than playing in the NBA playoffs.
Pogo-sticking nude down the busiest of causeways during rush hour in blizzard-like conditions.
Tap dancing across a tightrope that’s strung across the mouth of a volcano.
Riding on the back of Gustave, the man-eating crocodile.
Sitting through any Jamie Kennedy movie for more than six seconds.
Watching clips of Josh Smith attempting long twos and contested three-pointers on a loop.
I could go on. There’s definitely more than five things. But you get the point. And so does Toronto Raptors All-Star DeMar DeRozan.
Toronto is headed back to the playoffs for the first time since 2008, when Chris Bosh was still sporting purple. That makes it the first playoff berth of DeRozan’s career. Conventional wisdom demands he be nervous, more inclined to screw up and bomb the postseason. His confidence must be rattled to some extent.
Or maybe not.
From Doug Smith of thestar.com:
DeMar DeRozan is all of 24 years old, about as far from a grizzled NBA veteran as one can imagine.
Yet he approaches the first playoff game of his life as if he’s been doing it forever, entirely confident, not at all intimidated and fully accepting of what’s to come when the Toronto Raptors face the Brooklyn Nets at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday afternoon.
He’s heard the chatter and read the stories and been told the tales about how different it will be, how much more intense it will be, how some think he might cower from it.
And he laughs.
“I mean, it ain’t like it’s rocket science,” he said Thursday afternoon. “Everybody keeps talking to me like…it’s rocket science or I’ve got to know trigonometry or something. You just figure it out. You just go out there.
On a scale of awesome to wildly spectacular, DeRozan’s comments are really, really, ridiculously awesome and wildly spectacular times infinity. Bravo, DeMar.
We hear so much about how difficult playoff basketball can be. Much of what is said is true. Rotations typically shorten, the pace lessens and the level of competition increases. But you know what? It’s still basketball.
Not only that, it’s basketball without back-to-back grinds. Players are guaranteed at least one day off in between games. That doesn’t always happen during the regular season. Playing against bruising teams like the Chicago Bulls and Indiana Pacers won’t always feel good, but again, it’s not like the rules change. Only the stakes are different.
Yet while DeRozan is 100 percent correct, his confidence is both typical and surprising. No one expected the Raptors and DeRozan to be here. Not after trading Rudy Gay. And yet, here they are, alleged tankers tied for the Eastern Conference’s third-best record, staring down a first-round matchup with the dangerous, yet very beatable, Brooklyn Nets.
It’s sort of amazing how confident he is. Not unprecedented, just amazing. On a team that’s already exceeded its ceiling, you would think nerves would set it in or something—anything—that gives the Raptors collective jitters.
Succumbing to anxiety wouldn’t be indicative of these Raptors, though. Instead of tanking, they chose to fight. Kyle Lowry went off. Jonas Valanciunas took strides. Role players stepped up. DeRozan became an All-Star.
Think a little playoff basketball is going to scare them after all they’ve been through? Think their 16-25 record against teams above .500 will cause DeRozan and friends to doubt their very existence? Think again.
This isn’t life or death. This, in fact, isn’t rocket science.
It’s basketball.
Postseason basketball that DeRozan is mentally ready to play.
Dan Favale is a firm believer in the three-pointer as well as the notion that defense doesn’t always win championships. His musings can be found at Bleacherreport.com in addition to TheHoopDoctors.com.
