Saturday’s Game 1 loss to Milwaukee might have been the last stand of the “It’s Just One Game” brigade.
An analytical approach to understanding the Raptors insistence on losing series openers would suggest viewing each disappointing loss as its own entity; a game in which the outcome has no relation to the coincidentally similar results of the recent past.
The Game 1 loss at home to Brooklyn in 2014 was to be expected for an inexperienced team dabbling in late-April hoops for the first time. Losing to Washington the following year was an exposé of a team that may have never been all that good.