DeMar DeRozan and Paul George had a fair bit of success during their time with the Toronto Raptors and the Indiana Pacers, respectively, but neither of the two was able to lead their team to a championship.
The main reason for that? Well, that would be LeBron James, as he eliminated them on multiple occasions. During the latest episode of Podcast P, DeRozan and George admitted that LeBron was the reason why their tenures ended with those teams.
DeMar DeRozan: “I think the play that sticks out to me is Game 3, my last year in Toronto, where he went full court, shot the one-legged floater, and made it. That was it, that was like the end of my time in Toronto, that was it. We was down 3-0, obviously, we lost Game 4. I was out the game and I just remember him shooting that one-legged floater and it going in and I was just like ‘s***, this is it here.’ It was it. That one haunt me for sure.”
Paul George: “I think he put me away too man. We played them first round, got whopped up and then they played y’all that second round… that was my last time in Indy. He got me up out of there, too.”
(starts at 37:01 mark):
George got the years mixed up a bit. LeBron and the Cleveland Cavaliers swept the Pacers in the first round in 2017, after which George requested a trade and was sent to the Oklahoma City Thunder. It was actually the fourth time that James had eliminated PG from the postseason and he was probably sick of it by then. The Cavs then went on to sweep DeMar and the Raptors in the semifinals, but it didn’t signal the end of his time there just yet.
The following year in 2018, the Cavs swept the Raptors again in the Conference Semifinals, thanks, in part, to that ridiculous LeBron shot in Game 3. After that, Toronto decided to make a splash by trading for Kawhi Leonard, with DeRozan being included in the package. Quite a few have claimed that LeBron isn’t feared by his rivals, but it sure doesn’t seem like that is the case.
LeBron James Basically Owned The Raptors In The Playoffs
LeBron’s domination of the Raptors was quite incredible and it isn’t something you see very often. He knocked them out of the playoffs every year from 2016 to 2018. In 2018, the Raptors were the no. 1 seed with 59 wins and LeBron didn’t have Kyrie Irving by his side either and it still didn’t matter, as they got swept.
James basically knew them inside out, even telling a Raptors player in 2017 about how to correctly run their own offense. If he wasn’t around, Toronto could have made the Finals a couple of times and maybe they never make that trade for Kawhi.
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