Ya Can't Win If Ya Don't Make Yer Free Throws

'Course, it helps if your opponent's daughter isn't screaming like a banshee every time you shoot

Sometimes you’re the dog. And sometimes you’re the fire hydrant.

• Me, every damned day

It was something drilled into me as a high school point guard- winning basketball games is tough if you don’t make your free throws. I mean, they’re called “free” for a reason. They’re supposed to be gifts; you stand behind a line and shoot, stationary and free of harassment from opposing defenders. Of course, there’s a degree of difficulty involved, but good free-throw shooters make upwards of 90% of their shots.

I was a decent enough free-throw shooter in high school. I hovered between 75-80%, though I did make 54 straight in practice once. However, doing it in a game situation involves an extra added degree of difficulty. You have to be able to relax, calm your breathing, and let your body settle into the practiced rhythm that you’ve spent years of gym time practicing. All of this after running up and down the floor at full tilt.

NBA players shoot free throws at the same distance high school and college players do. So you’d think that being highly skilled professionals, they’d be much better at shooting free throws, yeah? Well, not necessarily.

If you watch the Chicago Bulls-Toronto Raptors play-in tournament game on Wednesday night, what you saw from the hometown Raptors was an exhibition of some of the worst brick-laying you’ll ever see in an NBA game. And in a playoff situation, no less.

The Raptors picked a bad night to have a bad night at the charity stripe. But, of course, it seems they had some help from a former teammate’s nine-year-old daughter.

TORONTO - As Fred VanVleet stepped up to the free throw line with 52 seconds remaining in the third quarter of Wednesday's play-in game between the Chicago Bulls and Toronto Raptors, the home crowd went silent as the Raptors guard took a few hard dribbles and spun the ball in his hands, preparing to shoot.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Clank.

For two-plus hours, the sound pierced the ears of the sold-out crowd, those watching at home and the Raptors players themselves each time one stepped up to the free throw line. The wail of 9-year-old Diar DeRozan echoing throughout Scotiabank Arena, she timed each shriek with devastating efficacy. It was perhaps the best free throw defense in history.

The Raptors subsequently shot 18-for-36 (50%) at the line, paving the way for Chicago's 109-105 comeback victory. It was their worst free throw shooting performance of the season and the most misses in an elimination game since 1969. Toronto All-Star Pascal Siakam, a career 78% free throw shooter, had a chance to tie the score with 12 seconds left after being fouled by Bulls guard Alex Caruso on a 3-point attempt, but missed two of three.

Yes, the Raptors offered up some of the worst examples of bricklaying you’d ever hope to see in an NBA arena. They could’ve built a two-story Colonial with the masonry the team threw up in front of their home fans.

And this is a team that brought an NBA title to Canada for the first time in league history in 2019. I was sitting in a bar in Vancouver, BC when Kawhi Leonard’s Game 7 jump shot from the corner over Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid bounced excruciatingly on the rim before settling into the twine at the final buzzer. I could only hear the packed bar erupt, but it felt like all of Canada went batshit crazy at that moment.

Four years on, they couldn’t even make it out of the first game of the NBA’s play-in tournament.

Wednesday night, Scotiabank Arena in Toronto was brought to its knees by the banshee-like screams of Demar DeRozan’s daughter, Diar. With a set of banshee-like pipes that somehow held up throughout the game, Diar screamed bloody murder every time one of the Raptors shot a free throw. It became the dominant story of the game.

Was she the reason the Raptors shot 50% as a team? Who knows, but she certainly didn’t help matters. Watching Toronto’s shooters clank shot after shot, it was hard to argue with the efficacy of Diar DeRozan’s efforts. And to think that her Dad almost made her stay home in Chicago so she wouldn’t miss any school.

"I kept hearing something during the game during free throws," Bulls guard DeMar DeRozan said after the game. "I looked back like ... dang, that's my daughter screaming."

Diar DeRozan had actually talked her way into sitting in the stands. With the Bulls headed to Toronto, where DeRozan spent the first nine years of his career, Diar asked her father if she could skip a day of school to come along, recalling her memories of growing up and going to games here.

"My daughter called me the other day when she was getting out of school and she just said, 'Dad, can I come to the Toronto game?'" DeRozan said. "I remember her going to all the Toronto games when she was a kid and I almost said no because she's in school back home. But she kept asking. She was just adamant about coming to support and I said, 'All right, you can miss one day of school and come to a game.' I'm glad I did. I owe her some money for sure."

Watching the game on television was a bit surreal. I tuned in midway through the first quarter, after ESPN’s commentators had already explained where the shrieking was emanating from. So I listened to most of the game having no idea what it was about until sometime in the fourth quarter when an ESPN camera panned over to show Diar DeRozan with a woman I presumed to be her mother.

Diar looked like she was taking her self-ascribed role as a disrupter very seriously. It looked like she knew what she was doing was working…and it almost certainly was. Professional basketball players don’t brick free throws that badly time and again unless they’ve been thrown off by something unexpected.

This isn’t the first time Diar DeRozan has gone viral for her actions at an NBA game. Last year, she was caught on camera mimicking her father's actions while he was at the free-throw line. Yeah, it’s pretty damned cute.

Having made it out of their first one-and-done play-in game, the Bulls are in Miami tonight to take on the Heat. The winner will take on the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference, the Milwaukee Bucks, in the first round best four-of-seven series.

The good news for the Bucks is that Diar DeRozan won’t be at the game in Miami. Instead, she’ll return to Chicago because her Dad doesn’t want her to miss any more school.

We’ll soon learn if the Bulls can advance without their 6th “man” helping their cause. It’s probably just as well; I’d have to wonder if her vocal cords could hold up through another performance like the one she turned in against Toronto.