It was the perfect ending to the season’s longest road trip, another high point in a Toronto Raptors season that has delivered them in bunches.
Undermanned, on the road, playing at altitude and coming off a difficult win the night before in Sacramento, Toronto somehow fought through every excuse laying in front of them and flew home from Utah in the wee hours of Tuesday morning with a win over the Jazz in their pocket, a four-game winning streak on the hop and a couple well-earned days off to look forward to.
It was a professional win by a team aiming at bigger things and they were feeling it.
“I don’t know who makes excuses, but we don’t,” Raptors guard Kyle Lowry told reporters after the game. “… Our team is unbelievable with just staying in the moment and understanding what we have to do. … The way we operate, the way we do things, the way we go about our business, we’re pros. Guys come in and do their job and get their work in. There is a real seriousness to what we do.”
Things got serious in a hurry.
Barely 48 hours later, one of the Raptors’ biggest wins was rendered a mere footnote. It wasn’t the result, but who they earned it against that suddenly mattered.
Because Wednesday night, when several members of the team and the organization were celebrating the launch of head coach Nick Nurse’s new charitable foundation, a thunderbolt struck that will reverberate around the Raptors, the NBA and all sports for weeks and months to come.
A Utah Jazz player – widely reported to be centre Rudy Gobert – had tested positive for COVID-19, the highly contagious and, in many cases, lethal virus that has been deemed a global pandemic just two months after it first surfaced in China.
What was the most memorable moment in the Raptors’ win over Utah?
A lot of fans might cite Raptors forward OG Anunoby getting into a close-quarters shoving match with Gobert in the game’s final minute, with both players earning ejections, the moment capturing Utah’s frustration and the Raptors’ unwillingness to bend.
Now it means a lot more.
The Jazz were moments away from tipping off against the Oklahoma City Thunder when the game was postponed and then cancelled once it was learned that Gobert had reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.
Things unfolded quickly after that. The NBA had already been in talks Wednesday about the mushrooming health crisis and the expectation was the league was going to play the remainder of the regular season – about a month’s worth of games – without fans in attendance, with most predicting that the NHL, MLB and MLS would likely follow suit.
But when Gobert reportedly tested positive everything was flung upside down, rending the best-laid plans like deck furniture in a tornado.
Shortly after 9:30 p.m., the league announced it was suspending the season. “The NBA will use this hiatus to determine next steps for moving forward in regard to the coronavirus pandemic,” the release read.
According to sources, it wasn’t long after that the Raptors players and staff were being tested for the virus that has had a mortality rate of about three per cent, globally.
Suspending the season was a move without precedent in the face of a threat almost without precedence in modern times, but the league had no choice.
While much of the literature around COVID-19 focuses on how it might spread in everyday life – picking up residual germs from a handrail, an elevator button or having the bad luck to be close to an infected person’s cough or sneeze – there can’t be a better transmission factory than an NBA game where players sweat and breathe heavily on each other in close proximity for 48 minutes a night.
And when it’s all done? It’s hugs and handshakes all around – the elbow bump hadn’t yet made it to the league.
With games being played every other night by teams travelling the continent like circus full of tall men, the effect of one player or one team being exposed gets amplified exponentially.
Over the course of 10 days – or roughly a timeline consistent with what is believed to be the incubation period for COVID-19 – the Jazz have played six games in five cities and each of their opponents have done about the same. A graphic put together neatly shows how little separation there is between teams and players across the league with the entire 30-team league connected to the Jazz and their opponents in the space of five days.
The Raptors and their team staff – as well as other recent Jazz opponents — have been advised to “self-quarantine” for a period that could be up to two weeks. Maybe by then, the injury plagued team will be healthy. Hopefully by then that will be their only concern.
As the word spread around the league, it was a communal “Oh, [expletive]” moment, with the assistant coach of a recent Jazz opponent finding out over dinner on the road and being thrust into the surreal: a global pandemic hitting home between the main course and dessert.
It made for some instantly iconic moments, like a flower somehow sprouting up between cracks in the concrete. By the time the Atlanta Hawks game against the New York Knicks was winding down, news that the league was suspending play had filtered around the league. It became apparent that there was a very real possibility that Wednesday night could end up being Vince Carter’s last NBA game, winding down an unprecedented 22-year career, robbing him of one last visit to Toronto scheduled for April.
Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce subbed Carter in for the final 19 seconds and the former Raptors icon drilled a three on his first and possibly last touch.
That he was mobbed by teammates and opponents alike probably doesn’t follow infectious disease protocol, but only time will tell how long Carter’s last shot lingers.
The NBA and all of sports are now in uncharted waters. There are plenty of questions: When will play resume? What will other leagues do? Will the regular season simply be cancelled, and the playoffs started as everything stands now? Will fans be allowed to watch games if and when it does? Or will the season simply fade away as far greater concerns move to the forefront and stay there?
For now, there are no answers and there may not be for days or weeks or longer.
It’s the most exciting time of the year for basketball, and the Raptors are one of the most enriching stories in the sport.
But none of it seems to matter for the moment.
The NBA with its cool social media presence has always been the league that has “gone viral” in the best and most modern sense.
Going viral this way is all too literal, too sobering and altogether different.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
