Toronto fans finally rewarded as Raptors exorcise playoff demons

Nearly half-hour before tipoff between the Raptors and Pacers on Sunday, while the soon-to-be deafening Air Canada Centre was still filling up, Drake sat in his courtside seat nervously awaiting one of the biggest games in Toronto's franchise history like any other fan.

Celebrities don't show up early for anything, let alone basketball games. And yet there was one of the biggest stars on the planet, in his seat way earlier than he needed to be, because where else would a Torontonian - even the most famous one - rather be on this night?

For the last three years, fans north of the border have turned the ACC into a madhouse come April. They've showed up, sang the Canadian anthem, donned the color-coded t-shirts, filled the outdoor square aptly nicknamed Jurassic Park, and roared for 48 minutes at a time.

Then the first round would come to to an end, and so would their team's season. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

So when the Raptors dropped Game 1 at home - again - and failed to close the Pacers out in Game 6 - again - it felt like more of the same.

Come Sunday, however, there were those fans. A record crowd inside the arena belted out O Canada in their red and white shirts. Thousands more braved a cold, rainy night in Toronto to watch the game outside, marching to Jurassic Park while hoping for a different outcome despite little to suggest one was in the cards (the Raptors entered Game 7 having been thoroughly dominated for the majority of the previous three games).

What choice did they have? After all, if Canadian fans let past humiliations and disappointments dictate their commitment, the Raptors never would have survived two mostly futile decades.

And then, finally, for the first time in 15 years and the first time in a best-of-seven format, those fans were rewarded in the form of a triumphant postseason series.

There goes that monkey

"There goes that monkey!" Raptors President and General Manager Masai Ujiri shouted outside the team's locker room following Toronto's breakthrough victory.

Head coach Dwane Casey, meanwhile, said he hoped the Raptors would play looser and more like their 56-win selves in the second round after finally shedding that first-round monkey from their backs.

When the final buzzer sounded, Drake jumped up and down with 20,000 others. Here was an A-lister who had just sold over 600,000 albums in one day - a cultural icon who helped his city get over its inferiority complex by summoning fans around the world to sing along about running through The 6 - and this is what sent him into a child-like state of euphoria.

That tells you something about this fan base, and the size of the monkey Ujiri and Casey were referencing.

It's gone now, sent packing along with the Pacers, and those stubborn, undeterred Raptors fans can finally just enjoy some playoff basketball.