It's all the feels when experiencing the Raptors in Jurassic Park
TORONTO — Klay Thompson drills back-to-back triples, giving the Golden State Warriors the lead in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, and for the next five minutes, a man wearing a Kyle Lowry jersey underneath his black backpack will clench his teeth and rock back and forth, taking his cap on and off between scratching his sleek black hair. For a moment, he crosses his elbows and stands still, like he’s drawing a charge in the Oracle Arena, almost 2,500 miles from Jurassic Park, outside the Scotiabank Arena, where Raptors fans gathered to watch the Raptors grab a 3-1 series lead Friday night.
The doomed attempt at achieving stillness passes. He shifts his weight from side to side, punching his fist against his palm until Serge Ibaka nails a three and offers a salve for a perpetually nervous fan base. Our hero, in fact, is not alone — he just wasn’t in the mood to talk. His name is Roal, and now he’s backslapping and chattering with his nephew. They’ve been Raptors fans since 2011, when they moved from the Philippines, where they shot hoops on the playground and occasionally watched YouTube highlights. Don’t tell anyone, but he changed shifts at work to be here tonight.
At a timeout, Roal pulls out his phone and shows me a series of messages. Him and his sister, an American cheering for the Warriors, have been trading barbs all night. They bet $50 dollars on the series, although they never agreed on which currency.
Jurassic Park, traditionally known as Maple Leaf Square, entered the lexicon five playoffs ago, when president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri ensconced himself in the crowd, grabbed a microphone and exclaimed, among other things, “F--- Brooklyn!” The energy of the fan base flowed and receded in the proceeding years, but now it has leaked outside of the Scotiabank Theatre, all the way down Bremner Boulevard to the Rogers Center, bleeding into Bay Street, the city’s financial core. Out of curiosity, I put away my badge and ask a security guard where I could get in and watch the game. He told me to try Union Station.
For every Roal, there is a fan who has never heard of Kevon Looney and can’t recognize Draymond Green. There’s also Noah, 18, who has watched enough games to collapse his arms into his body and scream, “Don’t dribble, Danny!” when sharpshooter Danny Green connects ball and floor. Adam, 34, grew up loving the Raptors amid a sea of Maple Leafs white and blue. “I remember shoveling snow to clear the court and shooting with my buddy, all winter and all summer.”
With what’s left of his voice, he reminisces fondly of the “Damon Stoudamire days,” and his first game at the Skydome, a loss to the Chicago Bulls. “We lost by three, but we kicked their butt, man. We held him. We held Michael Jordan,” he says, but he welcomes all bandwagoners. “The more, the merrier.”
The first thing you notice about Jurassic Park: It’s not an ideal viewing experience, especially if you’re not in the first viewing area. Lamp posts and trees obstruct the screen. In the fourth quarter, fans are squinting to tell the difference between Lowry and Kawhi Leonard — who, for the record, carry very different frames. Apparently you can buy beer, but I don’t see anyone selling or drinking any. Hot dogs and Tim Horton’s rule the square.
And yet there’s something about this run that has implored fans to leave their homes and take to the streets — to see history and destiny and reinvention churn out in front of their very eyes. The gravity of the moment demands a group experience, a chance at collective catharsis.
The Raptors keep drawing longer lines and larger, more raucous crowds. Connected by torment, they’re now looking to each other with wonder they thought they’d see only in other people’s eyes, exclaiming, over and over again, “Can you believe this is happening?” Lately, I feel like that’s the only question anyone ever asks me. The answer is still no.
Noah, clad in athletic gear, said he “loved” the trade that shipped away hometown hero DeMar DeRozan for Leonard, although he was nervous at first that Leonard would refuse to show up. Why? The same reason that, four years ago, he never would have believed the Raptors could be in this position: “I thought ... nobody wants to come here.”
Ah, yeah. It’s Canada — one twin pillar, alongside conspiracy theories, of the learned helplessness that has bound Raptors fans together for years: Stars won’t play in Canada, and even if they could, the referees — who do the bidding of a league that can’t monetize international ratings — would never allow them to reach the Finals. So why even bother trying? A shield of armor — hell, an identity — was built around this principle, which is why so many fans pushed back against Ujiri’s gamble. Didn’t he know this was the place Vince Carter pushed out of and Chris Bosh kicked out on the way out. “Nobody is thinking about that right now,” Noah said.
He might be right. It’s hard to put into words — my job, I know — but Leonard’s buzzer-beater in Game 7 of the second-round series against the Philadelphia 76ers marked a fundamental shift in how fans viewed the trade and the franchise, like a breakthrough in a season-long, fan base-wide therapy session. They started seeing the Raptors as the team that could, and that self-belief has been enough to validate the trade. At times, it even feels like the rest of the NBA is more anxious about Leonard’s decision than Raptors fans.
“Hey, I still love DeMar,” said Adam, teeming with the inevitable internal conflict that comes from having to move on to move up — “I got his jersey. But you do what you gotta to win.” — and searching for a way to reconcile the past with the present. “I wish he comes on Monday [for Game 5] and watches it.”
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