Raptors look to finish off Heat: Three things to watch in Game 6

The Toronto Raptors and the Miami Heat will take the court for Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinal Friday night, which also happens to be Friday the 13th. As if this series needed any help being weirder. In any case, it should also be noted that Game 6 will also be the 13th game of the Raptors’ postseason, cementing this as the team’s longest playoff run, eclipsing the 12 games in 2001.

With the Raptors up 3-2 in the series after Game 5’s 99-91 victory, Toronto has a chance to once again clinch on the road and book their ticket to the franchise’s first Eastern Conference final. With the tip-off at 8 p.m. in Miami, here’s three storylines ahead of the game.

Last man standing…

Either the Heat or the Raptors will advance to the Eastern Conference finals to face the Cleveland Cavaliers. That much is clear. Who will be playing in those games, however, is a different matter.

Injuries have been common during this physical second-round series between the No. 2 and No. 3 seed in the East. But in Game 5 we saw some unorthodox treatment methods from the Raptors medical staff. While on the bench, cameras spotted Raptors director of sports science Alex McKechnie wrapping DeMar DeRozan’s sore thumb with a red shoelace. DeRozan, pained by the thumb since Game 1, scored 34 points in the win and afterward called it a “thousand-dollar shoelace.”

“It was an excellent method, I guess, from Alex McKechnie. I'd never seen it before. Whatever works. Whatever means necessary,” Raptors head coach Dwane Casey said about the shoelace approach on Thursday.

But shoelaces can only do so much and each team has lost significant players to more serious ailments this round. In Game 3, both teams lost their centres as the Raptors’ Jonas Valanciunas — in the midst of one of his best games of the postseason — went down with a sprained right ankle, while the Heat’s Hassan Whiteside suffered a sprained right MCL.

Valanciunas has been ruled out of the series, while Whiteside won’t suit up for Game 6.

In another instance of injuries mirroring one another, the Raptors’ DeMarre Carroll and Heat’s Luol Deng both suffered left wrist injuries during Toronto’s Game 5. And while both are listed as “questionable” for Game 6, each made it clear that they want to play.

“Right now we're just being smart," Deng said. "I have to know what it is. As long as it's nothing serious, I will be out there Friday."

“It’s all right. It’s one of those things. I got positive feedback from the MRI, from the X-ray. If it ain’t broke, with me, I’m ready to play,” Carroll told reporters on Thursday.

Casey agreed the post-season is the time teams, and players, are hurting — but “this is the time you play through it.”

“Right now there’s nobody healthy in this league, totally healthy. There’s something that’s hurting on somebody,” he said after Wednesday’s Game 5.

The 6ix in Game 6

Toronto may be known as the Six (or the 6ix for the grammatically disinclined) thanks in large part to hometown rapper Drake. But despite the city’s namesake, Game 6s haven’t been kind to the Toronto Raptors.

In four previous playoff series that went at least six games, the Raptors sport a 1-3 record in Game 6s, having only come out on top in 2001 when the Raptors defeated the Philadelphia Sixers 101-89 to push the series to a deciding Game 7. And we all remember how that ended.

Against the Indiana Pacers in the first round, the Raptors dropped the sixth game 101-83 after a second-half collapse in what was one of their most disappointing performances this post-season.

Spoiling the reunion?

Whether the Raptors win or lose on Friday, they’ll be playing on Sunday. A loss means they return to Toronto to play a pivotal Game 7 against the Heat. A win means they head off to Cleveland to begin the Eastern Conference finals against LeBron James and the Cavaliers.

A Raptors win would also mean the anticipated Miami Heat-Cleveland Cavaliers final would be out of the picture.

Following the Cavaliers Game 1 win over the Atlanta Hawks, James was asked whether he had thought about playing his former team and former teammate Dwyane Wade in the post-season.

“Naturally, of course,” he said. “That’s since I’ve came back. It’d be great to play against those guys in the postseason. Throughout my whole career, I’ve always wanted to go against Wade in a playoff series. We’ve always talked about it even before we became teammates in ‘10.”

No matter what team the Cavaliers face in the East final, Cleveland will be the better-rested team. Since sweeping the Atlanta Hawks last Sunday, the Cavaliers have had a week to rest while Miami and Toronto slug it out in their semifinal series.