J-Speaks: Toronto Raptors versus Boston Celtics: Eastern Conference Semifinals Preview

 

The No. 2 Seeded Toronto Raptors and the No. 3 Seeded Boston Celtics made short work of their First-Round opponents and now two squads, who have played the most playoff games in the Eastern Conference square over the last half dozen years square off against each other in the NBA’s second season for the first time.

The only issue for the Raptors and Celtics, who completed opening-round four-game sweeps respectably of their Atlantic Division rivals in the Brooklyn Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers is health. The Celtics will start this series without All-Star swingman Gordon Hayward who sustained a Grade 3 sprain of his right ankle in Game 1 of their opening-round series against the 76ers, while the Raptors lost perennial All-Star lead guard Kyle Lowry in the opening quarter of the close out Game 4 win at the Nets (150-122) on Sunday on TNT. The status of playing in Game 1 Lowry, who averaged 12.5 points, 4.8 assists, seven rebounds, and 1.5 steals against the Nets is unknown.

Playing without key personnel is nothing new for either the Raptors or Celtics this season. The boys from “Beantown” have had their top six players available for just 19 of their 76 games, while the team whose playoff mantra in recent years “We The North” has had their top seven players available for only 26 of their 76 games.

Both teams in this series have an All-Star headlining scorer in Jayson Tatum for the Celtics and Pascal Siakam for the defending champion Raptors.

Tatum began the playoffs with a major splash with a playoff career-high of 32 points, 13 rebounds and three block shots in the Celtics 109-101 win versus the 76ers in Game 1 on Aug 17 on 10 for 21 from the field and 10 for 11 from the charity stripe. The former Duke Blue Devil followed that up with a new playoff career-high of 33 points on 12 for 20 shooting including another playoff career-high of 8 for 12 from three-point range. Tatum, 23 became the first Celtics player 23 years of age or younger to register back-to-back 30-plus point performances in the postseason.

After a rough Game 3 where he battled foul trouble and produced just 15 points on 6 for 19 shooting, Tatum in the closing Game 4 on Sunday at the 76ers registered 28 points, a playoff career-high 15 rebounds, and another two block shots on 10 for 18 shooting in the 110-106 victory. Tatum in the series against the 76ers averaged 27.0 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks on 48.7 percent from the field, and 42.2 percent from three-point range.

Siakam in the opening-round against the Nets was solid averaging 20.8 points, 7.8 rebounds and 4.8 assists in the series for head coach Nick Nurse, the 2019-20 Kia Coach of the Year. His shooting though was not up to par as he connected on over 45 percent of his shots in Game 3 where he went 11 for 23 shooting on his way to 26 points with eight boards and five assists. The other three games, Siakam shot just 38.8 percent from the floor (19 for 49) and for the series managed just 30.7 percent from three-point range.

The strength for both the Raptors and the Celtics is the collective unity they play with on both ends of the floor. While that continuity was lacking over the course of the regular season because of injuries, both finished with the No. 2 and No. 5 best marks in the NBA this season.

Head Coach of the Raptors Nick Nurse, who was named 2020 Kia Coach of the Year last weekend might have a little bit more depth than the Celtics in terms of their offensive attack with Fred VanVleet (21.3 ppg, 7.8 apg, 52.7 FG%, 55.9 3-Pt.% versus Nets), Serge Ibaka (19.3 ppg, 10.3 rpg 63.3 FG%, 57.1 3-Pt.% versus Nets), Norman Powell (17.5 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 60.5 FG%, 45.5 3-Pt.%), rookie Terence Davis (11.3 ppg, 63.2 FG%, 58.3 3-Pt.%), OG Anunoby (9.0 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 1.5 bpg), Marc Gasol, and Matt Thomas.

While Celtics’ Brad Stevens’ offensive attack is spearheaded the aforementioned Tatum, Kemba Walker (24.3 ppg, 49.3 FG% versus 76ers), and Jaylen Brown (21.5 ppg, 5.8 rpg 45.0 FG% versus 76ers), head coach Brad Stevens has a supporting cast that uses depending on the situation of the game with Marcus Smart (8.5 ppg, 4.5 rpg versus 76ers), Daniel Theis (8.5 ppg, 3.8 rpg), Enes Kanter, Brad Wanamaker, and rookie Grant Williams. 

The depth the Raptors have is a major reason they are able to no matter who is in the game stick to their offensive philosophy of turning forced turnovers and missed shots into quick striking fast break points, and produce scores in the half-court create good offensive opportunities by moving the ball and shooting jumper shots off the catch.

During the regular season though, which the Celtics took three of the four meetings against the Raptors, including winning at the Raptors on Christmas Day 2019 (118-102) on ESPN, it was the Celtics who were the better defensively and making their three-point shots.

While the Celtics managed to connect on 34 percent of their three-point attempts, the managed to make close to one more triple in the regular-season series (12.5) than the Raptors at 11.8, who connected on 38 percent of their threes.

The difference was in the points off of turnovers, where the Celtics outscored their Atlantic Division rivals to the tune of 25.8 to 13.5.

Those turnovers forced, especially when it comes off of a steal is the easiest way to ignite a fast break, which the Raptors did very well during the regular season, leading “The Association” by averaging 18.8 fast break points per game.

When they scored 20 or points in transition during the regular season, the Raptors compiled a 23-3 record. However, in the four regular season meetings against the Celtics accounted for four of the 19 times the defending champions were held to 13 fast-break points or less, outscoring them in transition 63-47. 

In their matchup during the restart on Aug. 7, which the Celtics won 122-100, Siakam did was the only loss in those 10 games when that occurred, registering a 9-1 mark. On top of that, the Raptors did not have Siakam in both their tilts against the Celtics, though they did win the next matchup three days after Christmas 113-97 in Boston.

Along with doing the things that they have done all season long to get to this point in the postseason, the Raptors have to keep the Celtics off the offensive glass if they expect to get one step closer to be positioned to win back-to-back titles.

In their aforementioned regular season matchups, the Celtics grabbed 30.4 of the available offensive rebounds and outscored the Raptors 63-37 in second chance points.

This series has the makings of a classic where both teams bring to the table talented rosters that are very versatile and extremely well coached. They both are extremely good defensive teams, which means creating easy points and generating big scoring runs will be at a premium in this series.

For the Raptors, it comes down to Siakam being able to be offensively efficient against the Celtics because the size advantages he, Gasol, Ibaka and Anunoby had against the Nets they will not necessarily have against the Celtics. Which would make the likely absence of Lowry even more serious.

For the Celtics, they are missing the scoring of Hayward, but they still have Tatum and Brown, and Walker who can get a bucket when their team has needed it, even against elite defensive squads.

They will need to be that way against the Raptors who like to switch and crossmatch as they showed during the regular season against the Celtics.

During the regular season, Lowry was the primary defender on Jayson Tatum. That was before Tatum became the dynamic scorer where dropping 30-plus points on a nightly basis was consistent, especially post All-Star break.

However, the Celtics had Tatum, Brown, and Hayward, all three of their wing players available against the Raptors. With Hayward out because of aforementioned ankle sprain, Smart has been starting, taking away the size advantage the Celtics had entering this series. That means the clear size advantage the Celtics could have had will not be there. For Tatum, he could see the 6-foot-7 Anunoby on him instead of the 6-foot-1 Lowry.

Even with that, the Raptors will not have any issue switching at the defensive end with their non-centers. The Raptors will also display a janky box-and-one at the defensive end, where Anunoby and Powell guarding Tatum at some point in this series.

Behind the Raptors' depth and hunger to repeat as NBA champions, they will overtake the Celtics in seven games.

Information and statistics are courtesy of 8/23/2020 6:30 p.m. Game 4 First-Round “Toronto Raptors versus Brooklyn Nets” on TNT, presented by Rocket Mortgage with Spero Dedes, Stan Van Gundy, and Stephanie Ready; 8/23/2020 11:30 p.m. “Inside the NBA,” presented by Kia on TNT with Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille O’Neal; 8/24/2020 www.nba.com’s “Series Preview: Defending Champions Face Stiff Test From Celtics,” by John Schuhmann; https://www.espn.com/nba/team/stats/_/name/bos; https://www.espn.com/nb/team/stats/_/name/tor; https://stats.nba.com/team/misc/; https://www.espn.comnab/player/gamelog/_/id/3149673/pascal-siakam; and https://www.espn.com/nba/player/gamelog/_/id/4065648/jayson-tatum.