After promising season, expectations for upstart Raptors only rise from here
CBC
In the end, the Toronto Raptors dug themselves into too deep a hole.
For three days between Games 5 and 6, momentum seemed firmly on the side of the Raptors becoming the first NBA team to come back from a 3-0 series deficit.
Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers was getting defensive over his spotty playoff record, MVP finalist Joel Embiid was questioning co-star James Harden's aggressiveness, and the plucky Raptors were one home win away from forcing Game 7.
It, rather emphatically, didn't happen. The 76ers ran away from the Raptors in the third quarter of Game 6 en route to a 132-97 victory. Embiid recorded 33 points and 12 rebounds, while Harden enjoyed his best game of the series with 22 points and 15 assists.
WATCH | 76ers throttle Raptors in Game 6:
Even still, it's tough not to view the Raptors season as a success.
Pascal Siakam regained the form that made him an all-NBA second-team forward prior to the pandemic. Fred VanVleet made his first all-star team. Fourth overall pick Scottie Barnes won rookie of the year, exceeding even the most optimistic projections.
The Raptors' win total was set at 35.5 by multiple sportsbooks before the season; they finished with 48.
By nearly any measure, Toronto beat expectations in its return home following last year's so-called "Tampa Tank," when the team spent the season playing in Florida due to pandemic restrictions and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2013.
The 2021-22 season, in some ways, marked the beginning of a new era of Raptors basketball.
Harden called the first-round series one of the "toughest" he's played in.
"Just because of their switching, athleticism, length," he explained. "They throw different defences at you, box-and-ones and zones and mess up the game. Credit to Nick Nurse, they're a resilient team."
Siakam, VanVleet and OG Anunoby are key holdovers from the 2019 title team who have all grown into essential roles with the new iteration of Raptors. We already know they can form the nucleus of a champion, especially with head coach Nick Nurse still at the helm.
Still, it's Barnes who will ultimately determine the team's direction.
Canada's Kevin Drury battled his way to a gold medal that left him in tears at a World Cup ski cross event on Friday in Val Thorens, France.
Soccer fans have accused FIFA of a "monumental betrayal" after latest prices for World Cup tickets began to circulate on Thursday.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is “disappointed” that the main arena slated to host ice hockey at February’s Olympics isn’t yet completed with less than two months to go before the Games are scheduled to be played.
A two-year suspension from competitive swimming has forced Penny Oleksiak to answer questions about drug use, train by herself in public pools and defend her legacy as Canada’s most decorated female Olympian.
Hockey, one of the premier events at the Winter Olympics and one that is welcoming NHL players back for the first time in more than a decade, will take place on ice shorter than NHL-regulation size.
Summer McIntosh capped swimming’s U.S. Open with the event record in the women’s 200-metre butterfly on Saturday in Austin, Texas.
Some bronze medals are worth their weight in gold. Valerie Grenier's third-place finish in women's giant slalom at the Mont-Tremblant World Cup certainly fits that category.
The men’s World Cup draw in Washington D.C. was going well for Canada until Pot 4.
The draw for the 2026 World Cup takes place Friday at 12 p.m. ET at the Kennedy Center in Washington, for the purpose of dividing the 48-team field into 12 groups of four. Once the tournament starts, 32 teams will advance from those preliminary groups to the single-elimination knockout rounds.
The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., buzzed with activity and speculation on Thursday in advance of Friday’s all-important draw for the 2026 men’s World Cup.
By the time the management group for the Canadian men’s national hockey team emerges from marathon meetings on Tuesday, as much as 80 per cent of the roster going to Italy next February should be written in pen.
Canada’s ski mountaineering athletes have their Olympic dreams on the line this weekend at a World Cup event in Solitude, Utah.
Goalie Carter Hart, one of five 2018 Canada world junior hockey players acquitted of sexual assault in July, will make his first NHL appearance in nearly two years when he starts in goal Tuesday night for the Vegas Golden Knights, who host Chicago.