TORONTO –- At the end of the Raptors’ first-ever Eastern Conference finals victory, Bismack Biyombo doubled over in front of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ bench.
On the final play of Toronto’s 99-84, season-saving Game 3 victory, Biyombo was hit in an all-too sensitive area.
“Got hit in an area that wasn’t supposed to be hit on ... a private area,” Biyombo said with a smile.
Outside of that final moment of the game, Biyombo was the one who inflicted physical punishment on the Cavaliers. With the Raptors’ season on the line, Biyombo set the tone for Toronto by hauling in a playoff franchise-record 26 rebounds, while blocking four shots and scoring seven points to help halt Cleveland's perfect 10-0 postseason and put Toronto in the win column in the Eastern Conference finals.
While DeMar DeRozan did serious damage on the offensive end with 32 points, as Kyle Lowry battled foul trouble, Biyombo was a force on the defensive end. He cleaned the glass as if his life depended on it and protected the Raptors’ paint as if LeBron James and Kyrie Irving were intruders into his home.
After each of his four rejections, Biyombo wagged his finger like Dikembe Mutombo, the shot-blocking guru. Biyombo also delivered a flagrant foul on James with 3:21 left in the fourth, when James went hard to the basket and became entangled in Biyombo’s arms.
“Biyombo has got to slow down," said one Cavs player, referring to the big man's antics. "It's good for TV, but it's not going to be good for them."
After the way the Raptors were handled in the first two games of this series, Toronto needed to show more fight, more attitude. The Raptors needed to hang with Cleveland to some degree, despite having never been on this stage before.
“Early on at the start of the game, we weren’t as physical as we should have been, especially coming into a building that we knew we had to be a little more physical,” James said. “... We understand [Biyombo] feeds off the crowd, but he’s also a huge impact on the glass at home. He gives them a lot of energy, he gives them a lot of second-chance points. He had eight offensive rebounds.
"He had, at one point, 14 rebounds and no points. The guy just stays in his lane.”
Toronto coach Dwane Casey echoed that sentiment by giving Biyombo one of the best compliments a rebounder can receive.
“He reminds me of a guy like [Dennis] Rodman going for the rebounds,” Casey said. “He knows where the ball is coming off, he has a sense of where it's coming off, and he does a good job doing that.
“He's one of the top rebounders in the league, and no telling how many times he gets hit and fouled under there without being called. Again, I'm going to say this: I think he gets hit almost on every rebound and putback there is, and he just doesn't get the calls, whether he's rolling to the bucket, and we've just got to have consistency with that.”
That didn’t slow down Biyombo one bit. He fed off the emotion. More than 2,000 fans waited patiently in lines that wrapped around the Air Canada Centre just to watch outside in the courtyard known as Jurassic Park. And inside the arena, fans tried to energize the Raptors.
Despite Lowry picking up three personal fouls early in the second quarter, DeRozan scored nine points and Biyombo had five rebounds and one block during a 22-7 run that broke open a 38-35 game into a 60-42 lead with 1:22 left in the first half.
Biyombo had 21 rebounds through three quarters, and Toronto gained momentum heading into the fourth after Cory Joseph sank a 3 at the buzzer to give the Raptors a 10-point cushion at the end of the third.
Patrick Patterson knocked in another trey to start the fourth, and Toronto managed to keep the Cavs at arm’s length. The Raptors had success blitzing and sending multiple bodies at Irving, who had his worst game of the postseason. Irving shot just 3-of-19, including 1-of-7 from beyond the arc, and finished with 13 points.
And then there was Biyombo’s flagrant foul on James. The King was asked at what point would he consider retaliating after a physical foul.
“I can’t afford to react in any kind of way that will get me thrown out of a game,” James said. “But I will protect myself.
"I always think back to the Jay Z phrase and a line he had: ‘If I shoot you, then I’m brainless; if you shoot me, you’re famous. What am I to do?’ That always plays in my head. Every time I feel like I want to react, I’ve got to keep my brain.”
Biyombo will certainly gain fame if he keeps rebounding like this. And if he continues to block LeBron and Irving, Biyombo might need to come up with his own rejection celebration.
“[Mutombo] was telling me how I haven’t given you permission to use my finger [wag] yet,” Biyombo said with a smile. “... But I love him. He’s like my big brother. I’ve had several conversations about him, especially defensively and how he was able to impact the game.
“Of course, he gave me permission to use his finger wag. Then I guess I just want to leave his legacy and make sure that I show him some love as my big brother.”
ESPN.com reporter Dave McMenamin contributed to this report.
