Lewenberg Toronto Raptors Should Feel Good About Likely First Round Matchup With Philadelphia 76Ers

If the Philadelphia 76ers could figure it out on the go, with Joel Embiid and James Harden and all that talent, they could be scary. The Raptors are not afraid of them, however, and they showed it again on Thursday. Having won a place in the top six and a guaranteed place in the playoffs a few nights earlier, they chose to rest Fred VanVleet and his sick knee. OG Anunoby was still out breastfeeding a bruised thigh. Toronto missed 10 of their first 11 shots, falling behind 17-2 early and allowing Philadelphia to shoot 19-to-36 from the three-pointer of the night. However, in a possible preview of the playoffs between the two teams, and in a game that should mean more to the visitors, the Raptors came out on top. “Perfect game,” Nick Nurs said after his side’s 119-114 victory. “Great energy in the building, the kids out there did a good job, they got contributions everywhere and Pascal [Siakam] it was wonderful.” Historically, the Raptors have matched Philly well. There is competition there, one that has been building since Kawhi Leonard’s Shot completed a iconic seven-game series and sent them home in 2019. Since then, Toronto has won seven of its 11 appearances, including three of its four this year. season, and no team has disappointed Embiid more. “Toronto is the only team that really does not allow me [have the ball in my hands]Said the Sixers superstar in a podcast with ESPN’s Zach Lowe last year. “Every time we play them as soon as the ball is in the air, they have three kids on me and they will not leave me alone.” They used this formula again. Gone are the days when Nurse could just throw Marc Gasol at Embiid and have the former defender of the year match his size and fitness. As it stands at the moment, the small Raptors do not have a player who can handle him in one cover. Instead, they must be very close to each other defensively, depriving him of the ball, preventing him from taking a position in the background and sending many defenders to capture. A player like Embiid cannot stop. Even on a quiet night, by his standards, he scored 30 points, but needed 22 shots to make it. Since the start of this second round in 2019, the Raptors have kept him at 36% of shots in 16 games. He shoots 50 percent against everyone in this space. “We do not have anyone on our team who fits in size, but we have speed, speed and length, so we use it to our advantage,” said Precious Achiuwa, who served as a key defender at Embiid and finished with 20 points and scored. five of his seven attempts for three-pointers. “We beat him in his points, his movement with the spin and his opposite movement, someone is right there, throws a lot of bodies at him, shows him different covers and makes him work throughout the game.” On the other side of the pitch, the Sixers had no answer for Shiakam, nor that anyone has recently. The Raptors forward had 37 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists – the third triple-double of his career and the second in eight days. Tobias Harris started the game on him and had few chances. When the slower Georges Niang took the mission, Siakam attacked him from the dribble. Embiid has defended him well in the past, but he tends to break the screens and, on Thursday, Siakam made him pay with his pull-up jumper. Having Ebid on him in the last two minutes, Shiakam led to his compatriot’s body, put him to bite a fake pump on the rim and then left the ball high and in to put the game away. The Sixers’ best chance to slow down Siakam was to watch from his couch. Matisse Thybulle was not eligible to play in Toronto due to his vaccination status. As of January 15, the Canadian government has asked players to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to cross the border. Assuming Thybulle is still considered unvaccinated, according to these guidelines, in a few weeks, and if these teams meet in the first round of the playoffs, Philly faces the possibility of running out of their best perimeter defenders for all road races. in seven series of games. Aside from the many other reasons why Philly should not want to face Toronto, one of the hottest teams in the league and winners in seven of his last eight games, this one is great. Philadelphia should have had a lot of motivation to win on Thursday. With Milwaukee winning over Boston later in the night, Miami took first place in the East. The Bucks, the Celtics and the Sixers are in second to fourth place in the standings, respectively, but they are separated by one game. There are scenarios in which the Raptors could end up facing any of these three teams. However, Milwaukee and Boston both hold the tiebreak with Philly, making fourth place the most likely landing spot for the Sixers. The Raptors, meanwhile, have one more win or loss in Chicago than being locked in as the fifth seed. The Celtics were 16-19 and in 10th place at the end of December. Since then, it is 34-12, good for the third best record in the NBA and peaks in the East. They have the second league attacking rankings and the best defense in this period. They normally crush their opponents, beating the teams by 12.8 points per 100 possessions – the next best score is Memphis with 8.5. Their defense was hit by the loss of Robert Williams, who suffered a meniscus tear in his left knee last month and is not expected to be ready for the opening round of the playoffs. However, they still have a top contender for the defensive player of the year at Marcus Smart, as well as one of the best two-way basketball twins, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown at the ends. Toronto and Boston split the season, but three of those meetings came early in the campaign, before the Celtics caught fire. In the Raptors’ fourth extra time 115-112 home win last Monday, Boston was without four of its five key players. This game was another reminder that regardless of who is in the lineup for these two teams and who is not, they play hard against each other. There is a story there, with the Celtics coming out of this competitive series of seven games in the bubble two years ago. Simply put, no one wants to face the hottest team in the conference, but the uncertainty surrounding their vaccine status makes them wild for the Raptors. While head coach Ime Udoka said his players would all be available to play in Toronto, the Celtics declined to confirm that they were a fully vaccinated team at ESPN last month. Last week’s meeting was Boston’s first trip to Canada since vaccination guidelines changed for professional athletes crossing the border and Tatum, Brown and Al Horford did not make the trip. It’s hard to pick a lot of that, as the Celtics were in the second night of the back-to-back, with Tatum and Brown battling minor injuries and Horford away from the team for personal reasons. For what it’s worth, Tatum said he was vaccinated. Horford was less direct, but confirmed he could play in Toronto. Brown was asked about his condition earlier this week and his answer was cryptic. “I am excited and ready to play against anyone,” he told reporters. “As Vice President of the Players’ Union, it is part of my job to respect privacy. You will not hear me comment. “ According to Boston Globe Gary Washburn, who cited an NBA source in his column over the weekend, “at least two front-line [Celtics] “The players are not vaccinated.” The Bucks are likely to be the toughest of the three possible games and, in addition, have been confirmed to be fully vaccinated. Like Philly, the Raptors have historically had the Milwaukee number. They swept the series of the season, although Giannis Antetokounbo played only in one of the three matches and has taken them out of the playoffs twice in the last five years, mainly in the Finals of the 2019 Conference. However, some things have changed since then. Nurse teams have been successful in slowing down Antitokunbo in the past, and the Raptors are not short of athletic defenders to knock him down, but the two-time MVP is better than ever. The biggest thing is that he and this body of the Bucks now have championship experience. We saw the difference made for the young Raptors players who went through the course of the 2019 title. The dominant champions are dangerous. While Philadelphia would be a big favorite in a series against Toronto, like the other two teams, the Raptors have shown that they can stick with them. They won the battle for possession with their hands on Thursday and attempted 16 extra shots, resulting in their 12 offensive rebounds and 17 overturns by Philly. Last month’s victory at Philly followed a well-known scenario, as the Raptors snatched 20 offensive boards and attempted 20 more shots. They kept the Sixers at 88 points and Embiid at 6 out of 20 shots in that game. The Raptors are a team that likes to chase dissent in attack, and as long as Harden is out there, Philly will be prone to it. In the two games against Toronto since the Sixers acquired Harden on the trade deadline, the all-star guard combined to shoot 8-to-24 from the field and 1-to-8 from the three-pointer. The Raptors are unlikely to have a strong preference among their three potential opponents. They do not seem to care where they will end up or who they will play with – their decision to keep VanVleet out on Thursday, despite what was at stake in the standings, was a pretty good sign …