With a pretty thin postseason history, pretty much any Toronto Raptors’ postseason record is up for grabs at any given time. That includes career marks – several Raptors are closing in on the franchise record for playoff games played – and individual games. After all, the Raptors are only in their 36th playoff games, not even half a season’s worth of outings.
And so any new records can be viewed through that filter. At the same time, holy hell, Jonas Valanciunas!
Valanciunas needed all of two-and-a-half quarters to break his own Raptors’ record for rebounds in a playoff games, pulling in his 19th board at the 6:24 mark of the third quarter. He grabbed 18 boards back in Game 1 of the team’s 2014 series against the Brooklyn Nets, the Lithuanian’s first career playoff game, topping Keon Clark’s then-record 16 rebounds from 2002. He was at 20 as he exited for a rest shortly thereafter. He’s done all of this – passing his regular-season high in rebounds in the process – in just 19 minutes of action.
The rebounds have had a huge impact, too. With the Raptors’ offense stagnating against a tough Indiana Pacers defense, Valanciunas has pulled in 11 offensive boards, also a franchise record for the playoffs. He’s also scored 12 points (on 4-of-14 shooting, unfortunately, tipping a lot of his own misses) and has probably been the team’s best player in a game they lead narrowly, 58-57. Unfortunately, he also has four fouls (the third of which was, uhh, not a good call).
He fouled out with 2:14 to go, finishing with 12-and-19 in 21 minutes. And yes, one of his rebounds was takena way at some point.
In terms of league-wide records, the most rebounds in a playoff game is Wilt Chamberlain’s 41 in 1967, and the most offensive rebounds is Moses Malone’s 15 in 1977. Since 1984, no player has topped 26 rebounds in a playoff game, a feat both Dwight Howard and Hakeem Olajuwon managed once. The Raptors’ franchise record for rebounds in any game is 25, set by Bismack Biyombo earlier this year.
