Before DeRozan faced off with LeBron, he faced off with security
DeMar DeRozan is a two-time All-Star who finished ninth in the NBA in scoring this season. He ranks in the top 10 in the Toronto Raptors’ franchise record book in just about every major statistical category and, some early-postseason-struggle-induced queasiness aside, is likely to command multiple maximum-salary contract offers when he hits free agency this summer.
He is, along with All-Star backcourt buddy Kyle Lowry, one of the faces of the Raptors organization … and yet, his face is apparently not always recognized within the friendly confines of his own home gym.
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From Chris Haynes of Cleveland.com:
[On Sunday afternoon, DeRozan] had arrived [at Air Canada Centre] to do a television interview with ESPN. Upon entry into the bowl area, a female security guard spotted him and stopped him. She asked what he was doing there and even went as far to ask if he worked at the arena.
DeRozan just chuckled and kept walking down the 100-level steps and onto the court where his backcourt teammate Kyle Lowry was waiting. The security guard called for backup, assuming a possible trespasser was on the scene.
Once help arrived and saw who was on the court, he said to his colleague, “That’s our two best players.” […]
“That was the first time that ever happened,” DeRozan said of the incident. “I just laughed about it. You know me. I wasn’t tripping. You can call the whole security team in here and obviously somebody is going to know, but she was just doing her job.”
This isn’t the first time this postseason that a Raptors star has run afoul of Air Canada Centre security:
… and it’s also not the first time that a course correction has gotten the Raps’ players and security staggers back on the same page:
When things get back on track. #Bestof3 #WeTheNorth pic.twitter.com/0TXgTrwk4T
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) May 24, 2016
It’s nice to hear that DeMar didn’t mind the interruption too much. If nothing else, it’ll give him a story to swap with Jeremy Lin the next time the two cross paths.
It’s also nice to hear that somebody managed to stop DeRozan, at least briefly, before Game 4 … because the Cleveland Cavaliers sure didn’t seem to have much success with that once the ball actually went up:
DeRozan continued his strong play on Monday, scoring 32 points on 14-for-23 shooting with three rebounds and three assists — including 22 after halftime, and 12 in the fourth quarter to match buckets with the red-hot Cavs — to help the Raptors score a 105-99 win that evened the Eastern Conference finals at two games apiece.
Lowry was heroic in the victory, but had he been a one-man army, the Raptors very well might be one loss away from vacation. DeRozan gave Toronto the dynamic duo it needed to draw within two victories of the NBA Finals, despite spending quite a bit of time guarded by a locked-in LeBron James … which wasn’t what brought DeRozan to the ACC on Sunday, but was what kept him there late into the night, according to Haynes:
DeRozan worked up a sweat, shooting close to a thousand shots for about two and a half hours and didn’t exit the arena until 1 a.m., cleveland.com has learned. The session placed heavy emphasis on scoring assertively and promptly.
Although DeRozan won’t admit it, sources with knowledge of the situation informed cleveland.com that this particular workout happened because he had a feeling LeBron James would be defending him in Monday’s Game 4 […]
DeRozan was aggressive and rarely second-guessed. He understood he wasn’t going to overpower James to get to his midrange sweet spots. Instead, he had to use his deception and quickness. No over-dribbling, just attacking.
It also helped that the Cavaliers switched on picks the majority of the time. DeRozan was able to use picks to get more favorable matchups.
“With me on him, they feel like trying to get me up off of him with a screen, with a guard so they can force a switch – that’s part of our defense,” James said. “… We’ve got to be much better in our schemes and doing it a little bit harder as well.”
Clearly, late-night shooting sessions are the key to the Raptors’ success. Forget about postgame relaxation, gang. Sleep is the cousin of death. Get thee to a shootaround!
It’s a safe bet that the Cavaliers will do things a bit harder, and better, and more effectively when the scene shifts back to Ohio for Game 5 at Quicken Loans Arena on Wednesday. For Lowry and DeRozan, the trick will be replicating their home-court production on the road — something they haven’t been able to do this postseason — in the hostile environment where they both struggled to make much of an impact en route to Cavalier blowouts in Games 1 and 2 of this series. It’s a tall task, but maybe Raptors fans will get lucky, a security guard at the Q will give DeMar the business, and he’ll start feeling right at home just in the nick of time.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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