Begging had turned to pleading, stress had turned to sweat, and the Raptors looked like they were buckling under the pressure of the moment. Toronto had gone nearly three minutes in the fourth quarter without making a field goal, when Fred VanVleet got the ball up top, went around a screen, and buried a 26-foot three-pointer over DeMarcus Cousins to tie the game at 91.
The shot was a chance to exhale, for both Raptors players and fans, but Fred wasn’t done there.
VanVleet would go on to hit two more impossible, clutch three-point shots in the next four minutes of Game 6’s fourth quarter, then got fouled on another.