It’s kind of a weird feeling, returning off the road to play the Philadelphia 76ers at home, the start of a six-game stand that could include emotion-fueled visits from Memphis, Atlanta, Cleveland, and Minnesota. It would be easy, then, to look past the Sixers, especially without The Process in tow. And the Toronto Raptors, talented as they are, could probably get away with it, letting Philadelphia hang around too long or make a late comeback, leaning on their stars to close things out. And they probably would, because they’re very good.
That shouldn’t happen, though. Great teams take care of weaker and short-handed competition. That killer instinct has been lacking some from the Raptors as they’ve ascended to their new, unfamiliar heights as a reliably good team. Still, they’ve beaten teams by 15 or more on 39 occasions over the last four seasons, and despite a weekend off, it wouldn’t be the worst time to get Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan a light night, considering how heavy and arduous this home-stand is.
Just don’t look past the Sixers. They might not be very good without Joel Embiid, especially if Jerryd Bayless sits, too, but they can be irritatingly resilient (ask Memphis, Cleveland, and Indiana, for example). And in head coach Dwane Casey’s mind, the Raptors have been at anything but their defensive best of late, which could either make the 76ers a dangerous underdog or a prime opportunity for the home side to find their footing.
“I don’t know what our record should be, I know what direction, how we’re playing. We’re not playing well defensively,” Casey said before tip-off. “We haven’t played good defense. I thought we played solid and still Houston shot 50 percent…For us, some of our defense is not very good. We had too many straight-line drives to the basket, too many transition buckets, Antetokounmpo goes from coast to coast too many times. ”
The game tips off at 7:30 on Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 590.. You can check out the full game preview here.
Raptors updates
Everything’s pretty quiet on the Raptors front. DeMarre Carroll is expected to play with no back-to-back situation and coming off of two days off, and his recent progress has been really encouraging. Fred VanVleet, Jakob Poeltl, and Bruno Caboclo will all be with the parent club, too, perhaps providing an opportunity for them to see the floor if the Raptors can put away the Sixers quickly enough.
There’s not a heck of a lot to say otherwise. The Raptors have very comfortably settled in with a nine-man rotation and very similar substitution patterns game-to-game, and while there remain cries to play Norman Powell, it’s not clear where his minutes can come with Carroll and Terrence Ross both playing well (and in Ross’ case, consistently, which is still hard to accept and believe in). Lucas Nogueira has been a little shaky over the last two outings, but his rim protection and screen-setting have probably been solid enough to fend off Poeltl for the backup center spot, even if he’s been imperfect as a defender. Everything’s the same until it’s not, basically.
PG: Kyle Lowry, Cory Joseph, Fred Vanleet
SG: DeMar DeRozan, Norman Powell
SF: DeMarre Carroll, Terrence Ross
PF: Pascal Siakam,Patrick Patterson, Bruno Caboclo
C: Jonas Valanciunas, Lucas Nogueira, Jakob Poeltl
ASSIGNED: None
OUT: Delon Wright, Jared Sullinger
76ers updates
We covered the bad news in the pre-game: Joel Embiid isn’t playing. He’s not even here to get a good quote off of. The Sixers played Cleveland yesterday, and they’re not going to task Embiid with traveling on a back-to-back he won’t play in, anyway. Elsewhere, Ben Simmons remains out indefinitely, and Nerlens Noel, member of the Kenneth Faried All-Stars, is still at least a couple of weeks from returning. Jerryd Bayless is also out for the second night in a row due to wrist soreness.
In terms of lineups to expect, it’s really difficult to tell. The Sixers’ most-used non-Embiid lineup has only played 45 minutes together, a terribly small sample (the Raptors have three lineups that have played at least 55 minutes together, as a comparison). What’s clear, though, is that the Sixers struggle without The Process. They’ve been outscored by 12.9 points per-100 possessions when he sits, and that number shrinks to just minus-2 PPC when he’s on the court. Trust the Process, indeed.
Jahlil Okafor will still present a nice test for Jonas Valanciunas and the other Raptor bigs, and they’ll be able to focus mostly on him in the post and as a dive-man since there aren’t a ton of ball-handlers here who are threats to attack and score in the pick-and-roll. They do have Gerald Henderson, though, who you may recognize from Will’s nightly Gerald Henderson Award, as he literally turns into Kobe Bryant whenever he plays the Raptors.
PG: Sergio Rodriguez, T.J. McConnell
SG: Gerald Henderson, Nik Stauskas
SF: Robert Covington, Hollis Thompson, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot
PF: Ersan Ilyasova, Dario Saric
C: Jahlil Okafor, Richaun Holmes
ASSIGNED: None
OUT: Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, Nerlens Noel, Jerryd Bayless
Assorted
- I’d expect VanVleet, Poeltl, and Caboclo to draw the assignment to the 905 for Tuesday’s game. They’ll probably back-and-forth all week with the schedules lining up so nicely. I’m not sure if they’ll practice with the Raptors and then bounce to Mississauga or head down for shootaround earlier in the day, as there are a few minor differences in defensive coverages between the two teams that could require some refreshing. And hey, they might actually get run in this game!
- “The Process” was said 471,689 times today.
The line
The Raptors are mammoth 15.5-point favorites, up from Raptors -14.5, and no matter how confident I am in a victory, I just can’t give those kind of points. My math suggests the Raptors should come close to covering (it’s really hard to figure how the end-game runs in a blowout may shake out), but I’m not touching a line that big with actual money. Because as I may have mentioned, I’m a coward.
Raptors 113, 76ers 98
