Maybe it’s something about that those vaunted West Coast vibes. The previous time the Raptors made a sojourn to the far reaches of the NBA’s Western Conference, things went awfully well — until the world stopped.
It was a trip now largely remembered because the Raptors were The Last Team to Face Rudy Gobert before Gobert, the Utah Jazz centre, became the NBA’s coronavirus Patient Zero. But in the days before sports were left on the shelf, it’s easy to forget that the Raptors were on fire. After losing a trip-opening game in Denver, they won four straight games, beating Phoenix, Golden State, Sacramento and the Jazz.