One more sleep till round 2
Shot Spectrums
Entering the playoffs, we talked a lot about how on defence the Raptors wanted to entice the least efficient shots on the floor but how their approach to shot spectrums had grown to be more nuanced this year. For example, they’d become more content surrendering the corner three if it meant helping in the paint or gambling to force turnovers because they’d identified which shooters to help off and recognized their length and speed made them better able to contest late.
That played out in a small-sample series against Orlando, as the Magic shot a larger share of threes than any other playoff team but hit just 30.8 percent. The Magic didn’t shoot poorly on wide open looks relative to their standards, the Raptors just did a great job contesting (and got a bit fortunate on covered attempts). Sagging off shooters allowed them to continue their goal of protecting the rim at an elite level.
It should be very interesting to see how this approach plays out against the 76ers, who were allergic to corner threes for most of the year. Percentage-wise, they were an above-average shooting team, but they sent out a lot of shooting talent in their trades and a lot rests on the shoulders of Redick, who does much more of his damage from above the break. The tradeoff for Philadelphia not being great from outside is that they shoot better around the rim than almost anyone thanks to Embiid. It presents an interesting tradeoff in terms of helping off or zoning up non-Redick shooters to double the post.
While the 76ers may not be dogmatic about the shot spectrum on offence, few teams limit opponent threes as well as they do. With their size and length, they can be switchy and are as adept as the Raptors at contesting late. They also have one of the league’s best at-rim deterrents in Embiid, and between those two strengths, they’ve coaxed a fair amount of inefficient mid-range looks. This was on full display against Brooklyn, as the 76ers turned them into an outmoded offence that could barely get a corner three off all series, a death knell the Nets’ high-variance approach.
How Philadelphia surrenders the mid-range might be the biggest question in non-Embiid minutes. Marjanovic has defensive utility in the paint but not much range outside of it, and with Gasol and Ibaka being the shooters they are from the elbows (or in Gasol’s case, the 3-point line), there should be ample breathing room. Few teams hit mid-range shots as well as the Raptors, who came off their “no non-paint twos” approach from last year to embrace those looks if they were open ones. They were on fire from those spots in Round 1, too.
The Sixers’ keys to beating the Raptors – The Athletic
2. Joel Embiid dominating Marc Gasol
There are few big men as capable of defending Embiid in the post as Marc Gasol, who was acquired by the Raptors on Feb. 7. Gasol, the Defensive Player of the Year in 2012-13, isn’t the overall defender now at 34 that he was back then, but he’s still a big, strong, smart post defender who is going to make Embiid work for everything he gets.
Gasol has had quite a bit of success defending Embiid, both this year and in his career. Over the past two seasons, Embiid shot just 10 for 29 with Gasol defending him and averaged only 16.5 points per 100 possessions. That’s a significant drop-off from Embiid’s normal effectiveness. And Embiid has never faced a team with both Leonard and Gasol on the court at the same time — so if Leonard is able to freely roam off the ball because of Simmons’ lack of perimeter shooting, his life could be even more difficult.
Situation76ers Off RtgEmbiid Pts/100pEmbiid FG%
Embiid vs Gasol (last 2 yrs)104.516.534.5%
Embiid (2018-19)111.337.348.4%How Embiid has performed when defended by Gasol over the past two seasons compared to his overall production from the 2018-19 regular season. “76ers Off Rtg” is points scored per 100 possessions by the Sixers as a team during that time. Embiid’s points per 100 possessions and field goal percentage are his own individual production. Stats from nba.com/stats.
So much of what the Sixers have built is based on the belief that when the playoffs come around, it’s the superstars that matter. The Sixers will need Embiid to play at that superstar level to have a chance against an opponent as deep and talented as the Raptors. They’ll need to figure out the Kawhi Leonard and Marc Gasol problems for Embiid to do so.
2019 NBA Playoffs: Finally, a Raptors team worth being obnoxiously confident about – Raptors HQ
“We know what we are, and what we can be,” said Kyle Lowry after Game 5. “We’re just, honestly, going. We’re just playing, day by day, game by game, possession by possession. We’re not getting too up. We’re not getting too down. We’re just going out there and playing. That just shows the professionalism of the team. We got some great veterans, and guys that’s been through it. It’s been pretty fun to be part of a team that’s just kind of staying the course, no ups, no downs, we’re just going to ride it and play extremely hard.”
From a self-assured Lowry, to Gasol suggesting the Raps can get stops whenever they damn well please, to the subtle smirks coach Nick Nurse still can’t totally hide when he gets roped into talking about how good his team is, you can tell they know something pretty neat’s going on.
Asked about whether the team’s defense — which held the Magic to under 96 points per 100 possessions in round one — had progressed to the desired level of tightness, Leonard’s smooth, warming baritone filled the press conference room with reassuring truths.
“I mean, we’re doing it now,” he said matter-of-factly. “I think the last four games, I don’t think they’ve shot over 43 percent from the field or 45 percent. We held them under 100 points. And it’s just about being consistent now”
If a higher, even more unwavering defensive ceiling is actually attainable for Toronto, the Sixers are oh so very screwed.
There’s reason to feel good, even brash, about the Philly match-up. Of the many players whose lunch Kawhi consumed this year, no one got jacked of more PB & J than Ben Simmons. And of all the league’s potential Joel Embiid foils, Gasol has proven to be among the most constricting, albeit small-sample noise applies to both individual showdowns.
Beat writer series preview: Raptors and 76ers set to measure big risks – The Athletic
MURPHY: Confidence seems pretty high in Toronto right now, which is an entirely new experience in the playoffs. It’s not so much that beating the Magic in five wasn’t expected, but the level of fooling around the franchise has done in previous postseasons really took a toll on the fanbase. Seeing the team take care of a lesser opponent decisively was restorative. That they also spent five games showing a defensive upside that was only theoretical before — the Raptors finished fourth in defensive efficiency at about 80 percent speed — offered a more logical reason for that confidence to grow, too.
I don’t think the Raptors will overrate the earlier meetings, given all the caveats. I do think they’ll enter quite confident in two matchups, though.
Gasol, as you said, has done well on Embiid in the recent past, and while nobody is going to stop Embiid over an entire series, Gasol just stifled an All-Star in Nikola Vucevic for five games and should at least limit the Raptors’ need to flood Embiid with help defenders. They still might, thanks to Philadelphia’s cramped spacing and Toronto’s desire to force turnovers and get on the run, but there will be fewer 9-1-1 scenarios to account for. The other is Leonard on Simmons. Simmons struggled mightily with Leonard on him this year, and this might be the first time all season we see Leonard locked in as a shutdown defender for really extended stretches.
That still leaves three tough positions. As you noted, Lowry is probably left to cover Redick. He’s done well with those types in the past (Bradley Beal last year, Evan Fournier last round), but that’s an exhausting task. The Raptors will probably look to help him out by switching one-through-four as required. Given Lowry’s ability to guard up for partial possessions, the Raptors will probably consider it a win if a mismatch produces Harris or Butler posting Lowry up amid cramped spacing with Simmons and Embiid off the ball. I’d guess Danny Green draws Butler and Pascal Siakam draws Harris to round things out, though I think this will all be pretty fluid.
The Sixers side of this might be even more interesting. Who do you think checks Lowry to start? My gut says Butler, given his skill defending point guards and the potential desire to have Simmons and Harris on Leonard and Siakam in some fashion. Do you see it shaking out differently? Is Brett Brown the type to get very switchy in a matchup like this, or tweak the matchups a lot, or will he let things ride a game or two if something isn’t working?
Inside Kawhi Leonard’s partnership with New Balance – Yahoo
“There’s a graveyard full of brands who have tried to do it the same way,” Cassidy said. “They get as many pairs [of shoes] out as possible, sign as many players as possible. It puts them in a short-sighted, no-win situation. The same brands enter basketball, disappear, enter, and come back. That’s not what we’re going to do. We don’t want to be the biggest. We want to be the best.”
Quality over quantity was a main talking point of New Balance’s strategy. Instead of signing as many athletes as possible, they narrowed the list down to a handful of players they thought would fit the brand’s basketball vision. New Balance started by signing Darius Bazley, a Princeton high school standout who decided to forego the collegiate process and skip an entire year of basketball to prepare for the 2019 NBA draft. As part of his endorsement deal, Bazley earned a $1 million internship at New Balance.
When Leonard became available in the market, Cassidy saw the opportunity to form a partnership with one of the players on his short list. He explained all of the above to the Toronto Raptors star. “He was engaged from our first conversation,” Cassidy said.
He had read all of the criticism about Leonard, his critics wondering whether his preference to retreat from the spotlight and stay away from social media would make him difficult to market, let alone be the face of a brand. Some saw Leonard’s personality as a detriment. Cassidy and New Balance disagreed.
“We were not going to make him something that he’s not,” Cassidy said. “It was important to drive home how different he is.”
In November 2018, New Balance announced their multi-year endorsement deal with Leonard. Several months later, at NBA All-Star weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina, New Balance released their first ad campaign involving Leonard.
In the ad, Leonard stands in a room with New Balance apparel as text appears on screen describing how different he is. References are made to his aversion to attention and how he doesn’t need the cameras.
At one point, Leonard’s famously large hands cover the camera lens to make the point apparent. “Kawhi doesn’t need to get your attention,” the ad says, as Leonard motions a finger to his mouth to shush everyone. “He already has it.” Over the 40 seconds, Leonard didn’t say a single word. The ad went viral on the Internet. Leonard debuted New Balance’s basketball shoe, the OMN1, at the All-Star Game that Sunday.
The most unlikely face of a basketball sneaker brand had found his home.
Raptors will have their hands full with Sixers’ Embiid – TSN.ca
In five career games against Gasol’s Memphis Grizzles, Embiid averaged just 14.0 points and 4.4 turnovers on 34 per cent shooting, including 1-for-16 from three-point range.
Of course, that’s a pretty small sample scattered over the course of the last three regular seasons. It’s encouraging, sure, but how much does it mean going into a best-of-seven playoff series? Just a couple weeks ago we noted that Magic forward Jonathan Isaac was one of the only players to shut down Pascal Siakam during the regular season, and we saw how that turned out. The playoffs are a different beast, and one way or another great players seem to find a way to put their stamp on a series.
The Raptors feel they’re equipped to challenge Embiid, and they should, but it’s going to take more than one man, as head coach Nick Nurse pointed out on Thursday.
“At this point I have confidence [Gasol can guard Embiid in single coverage],” Nurse said. “He’s a very physical, smart defender. I would imagine they are going to test him, I’d imagine we are going to test him out as well. But it’s like with anything, these guys are so good. You thinking that one guy could stop one guy or one coverage could stop one guy over a series, that’s probably not the case. It’s at least a two-man job, him and Serge [Ibaka], and then it becomes a team job as well.”
While Ibaka has had some success against Embiid as well, he’s giving up some size and strength in the matchup. Gasol is expected to get the bulk of the assignment, provided he can stay out of foul trouble (which was a bit of an issue in Round 1 and could be an even bigger challenge against Embiid).
Outside of Gasol and Ibaka, the Raptors don’t have a ton of viable options against a player like Embiid. Nurse has shown a willingness to shift Siakam to centre in certain matchups, but while he has the length to challenge most fives, he’s probably not strong enough to handle Embiid for long stretches. The same could be said for Chris Boucher, who’s also been dealing with a back issue. Recently signed centre Eric Moreland makes more sense as an emergency third option against Embiid, but he’s only appeared in seven games with Toronto this season.
Quietly, Gasol was one of the Raptors’ most valuable players in the previous round and he’ll be one of the most important going into this one. You’re not going to stop Embiid, at least as long as he’s healthy enough to be on the court, but the Raptors would have a major advantage in this series if they’re able to slow him down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pveE1R9b1lE
How Raptors’ Leonard, Gasol match up with 76ers’ Simmons, Embiid in GIFs – Sportsnet.ca
Marc Gasol vs. Joel Embiid
This particular matchup doesn’t have as much cut-and-dry evidence as our previous comparison and that’s because Gasol has never faced Embiid as a member of the Raptors.
Gasol saw Embiid and the Sixers twice this season while he was still with the Memphis Grizzlies and in those two contests, Embiid’s effectiveness was greatly limited as he only averaged 14.5 points on a dismal 28.6 per cent shooting.
Gasol’s defensive work on Embiid in those two games managed to limit the 76ers star centre to just 6-for-18 shooting, including an 0-for-6 mark from three-point range, in 108 defensive possessions over the course of the two games, according to NBA.com.
Embiid is one of the two best centres on the planet, blessed with uncommon quickness, agility and shooting ability for a man of his size and strength. To slow him down in any capacity as the primary defender is no small feat.
Toronto should feel pretty confident making Gasol the primary defender on Embiid during this series because he has the right tools to make life difficult.
It can’t be overstated how valuable Gasol is to the Raptors | Toronto Sun
Gasol hasn’t been anything close to a primary scoring option in Toronto, but it’s hard to overstate his contribution to a starting unit that dismantled the Magic. When Orlando coach Steve Clifford spoke on Tuesday night before a second straight curb-stomping from the Raptors, he pointed to the acquisition of Gasol as the moment when Toronto unlocked whole new ways to frustrate opponents. All five starters can play outside the paint, allowing the Raptors to maximize floor spacing and get more open shots. After the all-star break in mid-February, the Raptors shot better than 41% from three-point range, best in the NBA. Clifford said that when Gasol sets up beyond the three-point arc, it opens up the paint and leaves opponents vulnerable to drive-and-kick passing. And then the Raptors went out that night and built a 28-7 lead, almost entirely built on drives and three-pointers.
When the Gasol trade was made, the immediate question was whether the 34-year-old Spaniard had enough left in his big body to shoulder a significant offensive load on a team with designs on a long playoff run. But from the moment he arrived in Toronto, Gasol has been more playmaker than scorer, averaging fewer than eight shots per game and zinging passes all over the court.
Raptors coach Nick Nurse said on Thursday that when the Memphis trade was made, Gasol’s ability as a facilitator was “probably a big part of what we hoped he would be” for Toronto.
“In Memphis he was always playing those two-man games with (Mike) Conley, just constantly handling the ball back and forth, flipping it back, throwing it back-door, finding other people,” Nurse said. “To have a big man that can shoot the ball and pass it to any of the four players, at any time, is a really big asset.”
It certainly was in the Orlando series, where Toronto’s starters were as dominant as those of any team in the playoffs, save Milwaukee, which smashed an underhanded Detroit team in four straight.
Gasol said on Thursday that when he came to Toronto, there wasn’t a specific plan for how to use him. Which, fair enough: They didn’t know they would have him until they had him.
“And as a guy that’s coming in, you try to help in every way you can,” he said. “I’m lucky to be able to do a lot of things on the floor, so whatever they need me to do, I know I can provide.” Gasol has played on the Spanish national team under Sergio Scariolo, now a Raptors assistant, so they had a little better idea of his abilities than would some teams. “But also the team had its own tendencies and their playmakers and way of playing, so you try to find that happy middle and help the team any way you can,” Gasol said. “That’s all that matters to me.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVsn3ZW3g_0&t=151s
Sixers vs. Raptors: Second Round Rotations – Liberty Ballers
James Ennis, Boban Marjanovic, and Mike Scott (provided he’s healthy) are likely to come in midway through the first quarter. Those three plus the starting lineup should make up the bulk of the 76ers’ rotation in this series; in the four games Embiid played, the only other players to see first quarter minutes were:
T.J. McConnell: Played first quarter minutes in Game 1 and Game 5. McConnell is unlikely to stay in this rotation in this series considering he was barely in it in the first round and only played early in Game 5 because the score was something like 56-4 at that point. Jimmy Butler stays in while Simmons sits, so expect Point Jimmy. This changes in the event of a Mike Scott injury. We saw in Game 5 that Scott’s absence could lead to McConnell and Ben Simmons sharing the floor, which isn’t a great thing as the Sixers had a minus-4.8 net rating in the 549 minutes that McConnell and Simmons played together this season.
Jonathon Simmons: Played in Game 1, but that was mainly because James Ennis was out. Simmons won’t be on the floor for crucial minutes unless injuries occur.
So if we assume Mike Scott is good, we’re looking mainly at an eight-player rotation. I looked back at Game 4, to when Ennis was healthy and Embiid played his most minutes of the series, to see how things broke down in that one, though the second half was disrupted by Jimmy Butler’s ejection. Here’s the rotation with plus/minus numbers listed for each lineup, per Basketball Reference.
Expect less Scott and probably not Ennis in the fourth quarter unless Butler gets ejected again, but otherwise this seems like a pretty good indicator of what the Sixers will put on the floor.
The Marjanovic/Harris/Scott/Ennis/Butler unit was the second-most-used five-man group in round one and I’d expect we still see a good amount of it in this series. I think you can make a valid argument that Marjanovic is less playable in this series, but I don’t really know if you can make a corresponding argument that Jonah Bolden or Greg Monroe are any more playable for those backup five minutes. Maybe, if this lineup — which fared well in round one — struggles early, we see some changes at the backup center spot, but it’s probably going to be Bobi behind the 30-plus minutes of Embiid every night.
PTI: Who has the edge – 76ers or Raptors? – Video – TSN
After both the 76ers and the Raptors ended their respective first round series in five games to set up a much-anticipated showdown in the next round, the guys from PTI weigh in on who they believe has the edge in the upcoming matchup.
Philadelphia is the opponent the Raptors don’t know | The Star
In many ways, the teams are quite similar. They rely heavily on wonderful starting units — the Raptors’ first five have been the most effective of any in the NBA since the playoffs began — and have a plethora of ways to play. The Raptors move the ball and rely on the league’s best post-season defence; the Sixers like to use Embiid in a an old-school big man role while Simmons is one of the biggest point guards in the league.
Who figures what out first will go a long way in getting superiority. Game 2 is Monday night at Scotiabank Arena.
“It kind of feels like the first time we’re meeting them,” Raptors forward Pascal Siakam said. “We can take away a lot from the other games, but they have so many new faces, different guys, they do different things, so it’s hard to focus on ‘Well, this is what happened last time.’
“We have to go into this knowing individual players and the things they like to do, and then look at the teams. Start from — not from zero —– but we kind of have to dive into it with a different mindset than we had then. Some things will be the same, but there are going to be a lot of changes, too.”
What the Raptors really want to do is stay true to themselves. They were a defensive juggernaut in subduing the Orlando Magic in five first-round games and don’t want to change too much. Nurse hinted earlier this week at some subtle changes he’d likely make — the odd double-team on Embiid is surely one of them — but doing what they do, only better, is Toronto’s main concern.
The Raptors will try to force turnovers, get the games at a pace that suits their transition game, and play to their strengths. Nurse thinks the combination of Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka can give Embiid enough different looks so it limits his post-game efficiency, Leonard has dominated Simmons at times this season and Siakam’s quickness and aggressiveness can be disruptive.
But if change is necessary, change will come.
“There’s usually an A-B-C-D for the same action that you haven’t seen as much,” Nurse said. “Philly does some unique things. We were out there today working on some things. I guess we’ll find out Saturday which ones we’ll be going with.”
Brown: Simmons deserves credit for his defense – ESPN
“In relation to Ben and Kawhi and all that, I think before our eyes, Ben rose … his defensive effort in the Brooklyn series on D’Angelo [Russell] … I don’t know if he gets the credit … I don’t read much, but I don’t know if he gets the credit he should and we hope to have some carryover on that.
“I think you’re going to see multiple people, we have the ability to have multiple people guard Kawhi. So it would be wrong to assume that’s his matchup for the series for sure he will be on him. But we have different candidates that we hope to show Kawhi different looks.”
If Brown is wrong, and the prior three times Leonard and Simmons faced each other have any bearing on what happens in this series, Philadelphia will be in serious trouble. In those three games — all Raptors wins — Simmons averaged 13 points, 8.3 rebounds and 9.0 assists in over 37 minutes per game. More importantly, Simmons averaged an almost unfathomable eight turnovers per game.
Leonard, meanwhile, averaged 30.3 points, 7.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 4.0 steals and just 1.7 turnovers in over 34 minutes per game. The Sixers clearly hope things will look different when the teams start this series Saturday night at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena — though Sixers guard J.J. Redick doesn’t expect a drop-off from Leonard. Redick — who spent several years with the Los Angeles Clippers, playing against Leonard when he was still with the Spurs — said he thinks Leonard looks better now than he did before sitting out most of last season because of tendinopathy in his left quad and ultimately being traded to Toronto last summer.
“I think he looks better, doesn’t he?” Redick asked. “I think he looks better. He looks better. He’s pretty damn good.”
Leonard certainly lived up to that billing in Toronto’s five-game series victory over the Orlando Magic in the first round, scoring 27.8 points per game while shooting 55.6 percent from the floor and 53.8 percent from 3-point range as Toronto bounced back from losing the opening game by winning the following four to close out the series in five games — just as the Sixers did against the Brooklyn Nets.
“I think they’re totally different basketball teams,” Redick said, when asked to compare Brooklyn and Toronto. Obviously [the Raptors] have a go-to guy. At times in the Orlando series it seemed like two go-to guys in Kawhi and [Pascal] Siakam. Kawhi is a bonafide superstar in this league and there are only a handful of those guys spread over 30 teams, much less 16 in the playoffs, so it starts with him right there.”
Breaking down the Raptors-76ers 1v1 matchups – Video – TSN
Rod Black and Leo Rautins take a closer look at some of the matchups in the Raptors-76ers series, and break down the chess match between head coaches Nick Nurse and Brett Brown.
