The Raptors could barely hit a shot. They still won a gloriously ugly Game 4

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He was not talking about — and allow me to prepare to wave my arms all about, encompassing as much as is visible by the human eye, understandable by the human brain — everything. “Uhhh, I don’t know at this point,” the Toronto Raptors rookie said. Not knowing: It’s going around. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know what was happening,” Raptors reserve Sandro Mamukelashvili said. “My heart was beating hard as hell at the end, and I wasn’t even on the court.” If the Raptors’ 93-89 win wasn’t the weirdest playoff victory in franchise history, it definitely made the short list. At least in a rock fight, there are some stones with dull edges. On Sunday, there were flecks of orange paint that used to cover the rim strewn all over the Scotiabank Arena Floor. How strange did things get? Let’s consider the following: • The Raptors trailed by eight points with 4:55 remaining, and proceeded to score 16 points the rest of the way — two more than they scored in the entire first quarter. That offensive explosion consisted of three whole made field goals. • The Cavaliers ranked sixth in offensive efficiency this season. They failed to top 22 points in three of today’s four quarters. • Only four Raptors scored at halftime, totaling just 38 points. Naturally, Toronto led by two. “I told the guys at halftime, ‘That was one of the biggest halves I’ve ever seen’ because we keep missing shots, open shots,” Raptors veteran Garrett Temple said. “So, to continue to come back and have the wherewithal to defend at a high, high level on top of missing the shots — it’s elite.” Someone else had a related mid-game message. “I told the guys at halftime, ‘It’s awesome. … We’re shooting 27 percent from the field and 15 percent from the 3-point line.’ I was lying,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said. “I told them we were going to shoot better in the second half. We did not. We’ll leave that for the next game. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes.” Technically, the Raptors got “hotter” from the field overall in the second half, but only 10 percent of their 3s in the second half compared to 15 percent in the first. • Speaking of 3s, the Raptors went 4 for 30 from 3, narrowly avoiding the worst shooting accuracy in a playoff game by any team to take at least 30. The 2022 Utah Jazz lost the game in which they went 3 of 30 by 25. The next-worst shooting performance at that volume, a 4-of-33 performance by the Milwaukee Bucks in Boston in May 2022, produced a 28-point loss. “I kept saying, ‘Keep going, our shots are going to fall. Keep playing defence. Keep playing hard. The shots are going to fall,’” said RJ Barrett, who made the Raptors’ most field goals, at 8. He missed 14. “And then, we made the ones we needed.” I mean, that is technically correct — the best kind of correct. “In the beginning, the middle of the third, I said that I don’t think I’ve ever been on a team where we’ve missed that many shots,” Temple said. “We were shooting 24 percent at the time. We were 12 for 50. And we were still in the game. Honestly, kind of in control of the game.” • Brandon Ingram went 6 of 23 and had just the second-poorest shooting day for a 2026 NBA All-Star. Congrats to Donovan Mitchell (20 points on 6-of-24 shooting). Ingram also went 3 of 7 from 3, giving him 75 percent of the Raptors’ makes from deep. Every other player in the game combined to go 11 of 63 (17.5 percent). • Through three quarters, the Raptors and Cavaliers combined to shoot 29.8 percent from the floor. That’s fun. • If there was a signature play of the game, it was an eight-second violation caused by Scottie Barnes putting pressure on Mitchell, followed by Jamal Shead hurling his body at the ball as if he were a free safety trying to break up a pass over the middle. As the referees tried to determine what happened in the play, it appeared that only Barnes and Shead truly knew that a turnover might have occurred. The Raptors were down by one point at that time, and went ahead by going 7 of 8 from the free-throw line in the final 41 seconds, without a field goal — of course. “I didn’t even see that play,” Murray-Boyles said. “I didn’t even know what happened.” There’s that not knowing again. • If you want to go elsewhere for the marquee moment, it might have been Murray-Boyles having the wherewithal to not foul Mitchell, who was looking for some contact with the Cavaliers down three and 10 seconds remaining. In that way, the two biggest moments were examples of things failing to happen. • The Raptors won with an offensive rating of 94.9, per NBA.com, 13.3 points per 100 possessions worse than Brooklyn’s league-worst offence. The difference between Denver’s league-best offence and Brooklyn was just 13 points per 100 possessions this past regular season. The Nets were closer to being the Nuggets this year than Sunday’s Raptors were to equalling the Nets — again, in a game they won, playing against a team with two future Hall of Fame guards known for their offensive brilliance. • As pointed out by my colleague Zach Harper, the Raptors’ 32 percent field-goal percentage was the lowest by any winning team in a playoff game since the NBA-ABA merger. The 2014-15 Cleveland Cavaliers were the previous record-holder, if we’re calling these records. That team had the advantage of employing LeBron James (39 points, 16 rebounds 11 assists) and a comparatively respectable 9-of-27 success rate from deep in Game 2 of the NBA Finals. • The Raptors had an effective field-goal percentage, which accounts for the extra value of 3-pointers, of 34 percent. Only one team, the 1976-77 Philadelphia 76ers, have won a playoff game since the merger with a lower mark. The 3-pointer didn’t exist at the time. The lowest previous mark from a winner in the 3-point era was 34.6 percent, from the 2023-24 Indiana Pacers, who attempted just 15 3s and scored 73 points. “We just never, never flinched,” Rajaković said. “We continued guarding and guarding.” • The Cavaliers have won two games in this best-of-seven series. And now, so too have the Raptors. Somehow. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms