Raptors Rolling, But Face Historic Task Without VanVleet

The Toronto Raptors are facing their biggest test since the spring of 2019. Yes, way back before the National Basketball Association’s lone Canadian market won its first world championship.

Starting on the wrong foot against the Orlando Magic, Kawhi Leonard‘s Raptors bounced back for a 4-1 opening series win, before facing off against the all-too-familiar Philadelphia 76ers. A back-and-forth series saw Leonard drop ‘the shot’ at the buzzer in Game 7, sending Toronto to the Conference Finals vs. Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks.

The high-flying Raptors fell behind the eventual league MVP two games to none in Milwaukee, but clawed their way back with four-straight wins, including three in Toronto. The NBA Finals really weren’t much of a test for Canada’s team, with the Raptors finishing off Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors in Game 6, 114-110.

Toronto lost to Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics in seven games in the 2020 Conference Semifinals, before failing to qualify for the postseason in a 2021 calendar year chock-full of COVID and a schedule featuring a home base of Florida. In fact, the Raptors’ 2021 regular season practice facility was a hotel ballroom. Yes, it was a weird year.

But as the clocks ticked onward, 2021-22 provided Raptors fans in Canada the ultimate experience: watching their team play at home in Toronto.

Despite no longer boasting a lineup featuring Leonard, Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka, and Norman Powell, the 2022 Raptors’ playoff lineup has seen emerging stars Gary Trent Jr., OG Anunoby, and Rookie of the Year Scottie Barnes follow the lead of Pascal Siakam up front, playing in the absence of injured guard Fred VanVleet.

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With the six-year veteran likely sitting out in Toronto’s must-win Game 6 on Thursday, the team’s young core will need to grind out another gruelling performance without one of its top minute-munchers. Averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists and three rebounds per game through the Raptors’ opening series, VanVleet was forced out of Game 4 with a hip flexor strain. All indications are that he will cheer on his mates from the stands on Thursday.

Toronto, of course, fell behind 3-0 to Joel Embiid, James Harden and the 76ers to which Philadelphia outscored the Raptors by a combined 38 points. But games four and five were a different story, as Toronto held on for a 110-102 Game 4 victory, before beating up Embiid and Co. 103-88 on Monday.

“We talked about it a little bit, being down 3-0,” head coach Nick Nurse said. “That if somebody could do it, it’d be us.”

Should Toronto find a way to prove victorious at home on Thursday without VanVleet, the team would look to become the very first in NBA history to come back from a 3-0 playoff series deficit.

“We got nothing to lose,” Chris Boucher said. “If we lose, it’s over, so we just go in there and play… I don’t think we really think a lot about being down 3-0 anymore.”

Of the 146 teams having lost the first three games of a best-of-seven series, only 14 have made it to a sixth game, while only three have lasted to Game 7. None have come as series victors.

“I feel like we always get a couple of slaps in the face before we start playing well,” Chris Boucher said. “I think Game 3 really helped us realize what we needed to do. Losing like that really opens your eyes.”

Philadelphia, however, will likely come out with added fire on Thursday, after having its own fans boo its performance on Monday, before leaving Wells Fargo Center far before the final seconds ticked off the clock in Toronto’s critical Game 5 victory.

“We got put in a big hole here, 3-0, and we just knew that getting one [win] could get us back in this thing and give us a chance to keep it going,” said Nurse. “I mean, listen, everybody was disappointed about the 3-0 start and it felt a little heavy for a while, but not that long a while.”

As a matter of fact, the Raptors have only trailed 11 total minutes over the past three games, including just eight in regulation time.

“Our only thoughts we had was winning the next game,” Trent Jr. said. “No matter what that was, how we had to do it. Nothing else was in our head but trying to get a win.”

Relieving the pressure that had mounted in the opening losses, Toronto has squarely shifted that weight to Philadelphia, which will undoubtedly be under the microscope at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday.

The only thing that will be different in Toronto is that the 19,800 fans won’t be leaving the venue early.

“I think in basketball, the momentum shifts so much in one single game,” Nurse said. “We ought to feel good going into Thursday, but it’s not gonna mean anything because as soon as the ball goes up we gotta play well, we gotta make plays. I think getting off to a good start, especially defensively, would be a big key to continuing the play we’ve been on.”