Raptors flip fortunes with largest playoff comeback in franchise history

To paraphrase the great Fran Fraschilla, the Toronto Raptors were 12 minutes away from being 48 minutes away ... from elimination.

The Raptors entered the fourth quarter of Tuesday night's Game 5 trailing the Indiana Pacers by 13. They hadn't held a lead all game; the closest they'd come was when the score was 0-0. They'd trailed by as much as 17. A loss would send them back to Indianapolis on the brink of a third straight first-round exit.

Pacers head coach Frank Vogel inexplicably gave them life by rolling with a bench mob to start the quarter - sitting Paul George, who'd been hitting everything in sight on his way to 37 points through three frames - instead of going for the jugular.

The Raptors grabbed the opportunity and ran with it. Or sprinted, in the case of rookie swingman Norman Powell - whose boundless energy and defense on George down the stretch helped turn the tide - and backup center Bismack Biyombo, who grabbed eight rebounds in the fourth quarter alone.

The Pacers, who'd been scorching hot from deep in the first half, couldn't get anything to drop, largely because the Raptors cranked up their defensive intensity to the nth degree.

Careless turnovers started to pile up for the Pacers, and their own airtight defense started to deflate. The long-dormant Air Canada Centre crowd finally started to stir. Then, when the Raptors leveled the score, it exploded.

All told, the Raptors started the final stanza with a 21-2 run, turning their game-long deficit into a six-point lead.

The Pacers gathered themselves in time to make one last spirited push, but Solomon Hill's would-be game-tying triple was released a millisecond after the final buzzer, and the Raptors assured themselves at least one more playoff game in Toronto in 2016.

The 17-point comeback was the largest in franchise playoff history. In fact, the Raptors had never before won a playoff game in which they had trailed, at any point, by more than eight.

And so, in about nine minutes, the playoff fortunes of both teams changed dramatically - for what already feels like the zillionth time in the series.

One expects we haven't yet seen the saga's last twist.