With their opening-round playoff series tied at one game apiece, the Toronto Raptors head to Bankers Life Fieldhouse to visit the Indiana Pacers for Game 3. The Raptors coughed up home-court advantage in the series in Game 1 but have a great deal of confidence hitting the road, boasting the third-best road record in the NBA this season at 24-17. The game tips off at 7:30 on NBA TV (U.S.), TSN 1/3/4/5 (Canada), and TSN 1050 (Canadian radio).
“I think we’re a resilient team on the road.” – DeMar DeRozan
Full video from shootaround: https://t.co/tQ3xC5GAsC pic.twitter.com/8yGyCvCsYm
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) April 21, 2016
Required reading
Here’s what you need ahead of Game 3, assuming you haven’t been keeping up.
*Tamberlyn did an awesome job going super-deep for her Game 3 preview.
*The Pacers have found Jonas Valanciunas to be a huge problem. They’re likely to make adjustments, and the Raptors are ready for that.
*Terrence Ross is good to go after a scare bumping heads with DeMar DeRozan in Game 2.
*Here’s a big playoff mailbag.
And read this excellent feature on Norman Powell by James Herbert. James is the best.
Raptors updates
As mentioned above, Ross is ready to play, meaning head coach Dwane Casey’s rotation is still a little unclear. The bet here is that it remains a 10-man rotation, but who he opts to start and who the first wing off the bench becomes is anyone’s guess. Check back before tip-off to see if any changes to the starting lineup have been made.
It doesn’t sound like that will be the case, though, as Casey said before the game that Patterson has “this thing about starting,” per Ryan Wolstat.
“He’s more valuable to us coming off the bench giving us that shot in the arm.” – Casey on Patterson’s role.
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) April 21, 2016
UPDATE: No surprise, Raptors starters are the same, per Candace Buckner.
Assuming Lucas Noguiera and Bruno Caboclo draw inactive again and Casey rolls with the same starters, here’s what the rotation will look like:
PG: Kyle Lowry, Cory Joseph, (Delon Wright)
SG: DeMar DeRozan, Norman Powell, Terrence Ross
SF: DeMarre Carroll, (James Johnson)
PF: Luis Scola, Patrick Patterson, (Jason Thompson)
C: Jonas Valanciunas, Bismack Biyombo
Pacers updates
Ian Mahinmi (back) is officially questionable but said earlier in the day that he’ll play, so the Pacers can be considered at full-strength. They may tweak things, anyway, in order to counteract the dominance of Valanciunas, but it’s unclear as of yet whether that will be a stylistic change, a rotation change, or some combination of both.
UPDATE: The Pacers will not change their starting lineup, per Frank Vogel.
Assuming Rakeem Christmas and Shayne Whittington are your inactives again, the rotation will look something like this:
PG: George Hill, Ty Lawson, (Joseph Young)
SG: Monta Ellis, Rodney Stuckey
SF: Paul George, Miles, Solomon Hill, (Glenn Robinson)
PF: Lavoy Allen, Myles Turner
C: Ian Mahinmi, (Jordan Hill)
Pre-game notes/quotes
*All eyes remain on DeRozan entering Game 3. He’s had a pair of poor offensive showings and sat the entire fourth quarter of Game 2, but everyone remains confident that DeRozan will figure it out. And he almost certainly will. He’s just too talented to miss on this shot mix (from StatMuse) over a larger sample, and he’s shown an ability throughout the season to make necessary adjustments to his game. Keep the faith.
*Frank Vogel really didn’t have much to say at shootaround Thursday, which was pretty hilarious.
#Pacers coach Vogel in full playoff mode today. #Popovich pic.twitter.com/YaGsOWszx8
— Clark Wade (@ClarkWade34) April 21, 2016
Assorted
*Rest in peace, Prince. This one stings, and the world lost a true original and one of its most interesting people today. The amount of awesome Prince stories that have flooded the timeline today are so, so welcome, and I didn’t realize there were so many Toronto-based ones. I’ve read so much Prince stuff today, and I can’t wait to read a bunch more. It’s probably short notice for the Raptors to get an exception to wear their purple jerseys in tribute, but hopefully they stick with the purple-out for Game 5, at least.
My favourite TO Prince story is him supposedly going to Vortex records, grabbing up all the bootlegs of his own shows, then just leaving.
— Andrew Stoeten (@AndrewStoeten) April 21, 2016
— Jake Goldsbie (@JGoldsbie) April 21, 2016
*This is cool.
For reference, here were the league’s five best offenses this season by style. Lots of paths to efficiency. pic.twitter.com/nhnC0uCdBn
— Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh) April 21, 2016
The line
Game 1: Raptors -6.5
Game 2: Raptors -7
Game 3: Raptors -1
The Raptors are one-point favorites on the road, which is consistent with earlier lines. Basically, the market continues to see the Raptors as roughly four points better than the Pacers given a neutral court, give or take a point. The line opened at Raptors -1.5 and is still there some places, and it even pushed to Raptors -2 at one points, but Raptors -1 is the most common line I’m seeing here. The over under is at 194.5, more or less in line with the last two games.
Raptors 98, Pacers 91
