Worth the wait 🖤 pic.twitter.com/qMUgC9D64O
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) April 7, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TbyzJTbuPE&ab_channel=NVBTV
10 things: Raptors put together statement performance against Sixers – Sportsnet
Five – Thybulle would provide more perimeter defence, but it would negate the only reason why the Sixers were in this game. As usual, the Raptors swarmed the stars in Embiid and Harden, which led to open threes for the supporting cast. The Sixers were able to start three shooters in Maxey, Danny Green, and Tobias Harris who combined for 13 makes instead of relying on Thybulle who is a complete non-shooter. But the inescapable impression when watching the Sixers is that they are static. It’s either isolations for Embiid, or Harden taking a dozen dribbles before stepping back. Maxey is quick and much improved from deep, but nobody else moves and nobody else even gets a chance to make a play. It makes them easy to guard. The only difference between this game and when the Raptors held them to 88 points last month is that the supporting cast got hot, and it still didn’t matter.
On Green’s Raptors ring night, Siakam delivers performance worthy of MVP chants – Sportsnet
They had plenty to get energized about, in addition to Siakam’s dominance. Gary Trent Jr. added 30 points in his best game since the All-Star break and Scottie Barnes continued to make his case for Rookie of the Year with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
Meanwhile, Precious Achiuwa, who got the start when the Raptors opted to rest Fred VanVleet, proved once again that his post-All-Star surge could be a thing as he finished with 20 points while going 5-of-7 from three, part of a 15-of-33 attack from deep which was needed as the Sixers went 19-of-36, led by Green who shone in his old gym with a 6-of-7 night from deep.
Siakam put on a clinic in the third quarter as he led all scorers with 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting, mostly while operating from the middle of the floor as he kept the Sixers defenders on a string. When they sent another defender, the ball was out of his hands and into those of a teammate for a good look. Siakam counted 12 points and two assists in a six-minute flurry to close the third quarter, giving Toronto an 87-85 lead to start the fourth.
“Heckuva game, great energy in the building, guys that were out there did a good job, got contributions all over the place and Pascal obviously was awesome,” said Nurse. “There’s guys that were ready to shoot when he did kick it out and made ‘em and that obviously helps the 12 assists number because that’s the play that’s there [but he’s] just creating a lot of offence there.”
With some leeway over the final weekend of the season and five or six days off before their series would start, the Raptors will be looking to rest some key players. VanVleet was looking to get his ailing knee right before the games that matter. The hope is that OG Anunoby – who missed his third straight game with a bruised thigh – could be ready to play Sunday in New York, the last game of the regular season. With the Raptors playing on the second night of a home back-to-back against lowly Houston on Friday, chances are a fair number of regulars will be in street clothes or on reduced minutes.
Green got the start in part after the Sixers had to leave Matisse Thybulle in Philadelphia because he’s unvaccinated and unable to cross the border. It could be a factor if the two teams meet in the first round which would be the case based on the standings before the tip. Thybulle is Philadelphia’s best wing defender and would be unavailable from Games 3 and 4 of a seven-game, first-round series.
In that case, Green is a more than capable back-up. At 36.9 per cent on just over four three-point attempts a game off the bench, Green is still a threat although he hasn’t shot as well from deep as he did in Toronto when he connected on 45.5 per cent, second in the NBA among those with at least five attempts per game. But he’s still a threat and remains a determined individual defender and smart in a team concept.
“I always called him a glue guy for that team, which is an important thing,” said Nurse. “A veteran who won a lot, was a great pro, was available. I don’t think he felt the greatest a lot during the season, but he always wanted to go out there and play, loved to play. And he brought a lot of winning qualities to the team.”
Raptors have good reason to be confident in potential playoff series against 76ers – The Athletic
You could see Pascal Siakam’s eyes lighting up in real time. When he got a bit of a runway and saw anybody not named Joel Embiid in front of him Thursday night, it was go time.
Tobias Harris? Bring him on. Danny Green? A smart defender, but he can be maneuvered around. Georges Niang or Furkan Korkmaz? Please. Siakam was going to go aggressively at any of them and let Embiid rotate over to provide help. None of those guys, after all, was going to be able to hold off Siakam for too long.
As the Raptors’ list of potential playoff opponents has essentially shortened to three, it is the Philadelphia 76ers, with a player the Raptors are, on paper, especially ill-equipped to guard, who are the obvious most desirable of the trio. For the second time this season, the Raptors beat the 76ers despite the absence of Fred VanVleet and OG Anunoby, winning 119-114.
Siakam was virtually impossible for the 76ers to stop, which eventually led Doc Rivers to put Embiid on him. That helped slow Siakam down but took Embiid away from his natural spot as a help defender.
Tyrese Maxey: 22 points, four assists, three rebounds, two steals, one block
Fresh off his three-point explosion from Tuesday, the second-year guard delighted again with 22 points on 7-of-11 shooting, including 4 of 5 beyond the arc. He connected on a pair of first-quarter triples, one of which came as he drifted to his left on the wing. The confidence in his outside jumper is staggeringly improved from his rookie season and seems to peaking ahead of the playoffs. In the third quarter, for his third long ball, he buried a step-back look. As Toronto’s lead swelled to 10 midway through the fourth, Maxey embarked on a personal 7-0 run via an and-one, a couple foul shots and midrange bucket. Although he was inconsistent defensively, he put together a few impressive possessions against Gary Trent Jr. — who was en fuego — and ended with a combined three steals and blocks. Maxey appears to have moved past his slump of late last month and is cooking these days. Thursday was no exception, despite the loss.
Danny Green: 18 points, five rebounds, four assists, one steal, one block
Making his first start since Feb. 15, Green poured in a season-high 18 points on a season-high six triples. Prior to Thursday, he hadn’t made more than four threes in a game and that happened one time this year, all the way back on Oct. 26. He knocked down a handful of contested threes, ripped through the net on a few and kept the ball moving when a shot wasn’t available. Defensively, his size, strength and understanding of angles flustered Pascal Siakam at times, even though Siakam still dominated all night. This was the Danny Green of last season and it was massively important in Matisse Thybulle’s absence.
Recap: Siakam’s triple double leads Toronto Raptors past Philadelphia 76ers, 119-114 – Raptors HQ
Siakam’s success alone should have Raptors fans salivating, especially when you consider the team’s alternative first round matchups — Boston, who have already shown (albeit in 2020) that they have the personnel to bother Pascal, and Milwaukee, who have possibly the best wing defender in the league (when he switches on) in Giannis Antetokounmpo. Half a series of Thybulle looks pretty sweet in comparison.
The Raptors weren’t only building confidence there, though. Tonight’s game featured an odd amount of Precious Achiuwa and James Harden going after each other. Surprisingly, it was Precious winning the matchup, as he went 7-for-11 from the field — including a jaw-dropping pull-up transition three — for 20 points.
On the other end, Harden continued to call for switches that put Precious on him in one-on-one situations. Admittedly, he did get by a handful of times — but the vast majority resulted in hurried, unsuccessful trips. The Sixers have to have some level of concern over Harden, especially after his bland performance tonight — 13 points, 15 assists, 3-for-12 shooting — as he was relegated to a skip pass maestro in a matchup where he needed to score in volume, especially when leading lineups with Embiid on the bench.
Red hot shooting nights from Tyrese Maxey (4-for-5 from three) and Danny Green (6-for-7) covered up an eye-opening Harden performance, one where the Raptors got plenty of film heading into a potential playoff matchup.
It wasn’t all rosy for Toronto, though, as they did get off to a slow start. Right after getting his championship ring, Danny Green set off a 17-0 Sixers run with an early three-pointer that spanned a Nick Nurse timeout. With Philly red hot from outside, the Raptors started to settle the tempo by establishing Siakam — making the early realization that nobody would be able to guard him. A big frame of 11 points, six rebounds and two assists from Pascal helped cut the Sixers lead to single-digits before the end of the quarter, before threes from Chris Boucher and Gary Trent Jr. gave Toronto the lead back early in the second.
Let’s pause and talk about Trent Jr. here. In possibly the most invisible 30-point game in Raptors history, his support was crucial to Toronto’s win — and will undoubtedly be lost to a flashy Siakam game where the Raptors star only scored seven more points. It feels like Gary has more of these games than anyone on the roster, where he pours in points in various lineups — starters and bench — to prop up Toronto when other players are sitting out. He deserves a paragraph for his performance tonight, and this is that paragraph.
There’s no stopping a player like Embiid. Even on a quiet night, by his standards, he scored 30 points, but he needed 22 shots to do it. Since the start of that second-round series in 2019, the Raptors have held him to 36 per cent shooting in 16 meetings. He’s shooting 50 per cent against everybody else over that span.
“We don’t have anyone on our team that matches him in size but we have quickness, we have speed and we have length, so we use that to our advantage,” said Precious Achiuwa, who served as the primary defender on Embiid and finished with 20 points and hit five of his seven three-point attempts. “We beat him to his spots, his spin move and counter move someone is right there, throwing a lot of bodies at him, showing different coverages, and making him work throughout the game.”
On the other side of the floor, the Sixers didn’t have an answer for Siakam, not that anybody has recently. The Raptors’ forward had 37 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists – recording his third career triple-double and second in the span of eight days.
Tobias Harris started the game on him and had little chance. When the slower Georges Niang got the assignment, Siakam attacked him off the dribble. Embiid has defended him well in the past, but has a tendency to go under on screens and, on Thursday, Siakam made him pay with his pull-up jumper.
With Embiid on him inside the final two minutes, Siakam drove into the body of his countryman, got him to bite on a pump fake at the rim and then laid the ball up and in to put the game out of reach.
The Sixers’ best chance at slowing Siakam down was watching from his couch. Matisse Thybulle was ineligible to play in Toronto due to his vaccine status. As of January 15, the Canadian government has required players to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to cross the border.
Assuming Thybulle is still considered unvaccinated, by those guidelines, in a couple weeks, and if these teams do meet up in the first round of the playoffs, Philly faces the possibility of being without their best perimeter defenders for all road contests in a seven-game series.
In addition to the many other reasons why Philly shouldn’t want to face Toronto, one of the league’s hottest teams and winners of seven of its last eight games, that’s a big one.
Philadelphia should’ve been highly motivated to win on Thursday. With Milwaukee’s win over Boston later in the evening, Miami clinched the top seed in the East. The Bucks, Celtics and Sixers currently sit second through fourth in the standings, respectively, but they’re separated by one game.
Short-handed Raptors tighten grip on fifth with win over Sixers | The Star
Despite the fact that it was Toronto’s 80th game of the season, starters Fred VanVleet and OG Anunoby were out and they’d wrapped up a playoff spot Tuesday, the Raptors did what they generally do: fight for an entire game. They got down 13 points in the first six minutes when Philadelphia made its first five three-pointers, but grinded out the rest of the way.
“I hate to get in that mind to say the consequences aren’t that (grave),” Nurse said before the game about the potential outcome, whatever it would be. “To me, we want to win and we want to play really well, period. I just don’t think you can think that way.”
But knowing they’ll open the playoffs on the road in just over a week against a talented opponent, regardless of where they finish, the Raptors are not at all focused on finishing fifth or sixth.
“I’m trying to find a reason why it does (matter) other than fifth sounds better than sixth,” Nurse said before the game. “I think there’s so much uncertainty about any of it, and it doesn’t really matter anyway. Doesn’t matter a whole lot.”
The Raptors rested VanVleet and his sore right knee and were also missing Anunoby and Yuta Watanabe, both of whom are chasing Sunday’s season finale as a return date.
The more significant absence was Philadelphia’s Matisse Thybulle, who was declared “ineligible to play” Wednesday. Sixers officials would not confirm Thybulle’s COVID vaccination status, but the league will not seek any change to Canadian laws to allow unvaccinated players into the country, playoffs included.
“As we saw here in New York City, those are city ordinances; in other cases, they’re state,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said this week. “And in the case of Toronto, there are Canadian issues that we have to comply with.
“Those rules are well known to all players, and for any player who chooses not to get vaccinated, they know they are at risk of not being allowed to play in Toronto. That’s the facts that we’re all going to have to operate under.”
Raptors Show They’re Ready to See the 76ers in the Playoffs – Sports Illustrated
VanVleet might be getting some time off to rest before the playoffs, but the Raptors certainly aren’t taking it easy on Siakam. Maybe it’s the All-NBA chase they’re after for the 28-year-old forward who terrorized the 76ers from the mid-range Thursday night. With Embiid clogging up the paint, the 6-foot-9 Siakam just rose up over and over again with his short-range floater to the tune of 37 points, 12 rebounds, and 11 assists for his second triple-double of the season and third of his career.
“Pascal obviously was awesome,” Nurse said. “Listen, I think there’s guys that were ready to shoot when he did kick it out and made ‘em, that obviously helps the 12 assists number because that’s the play that’s there. Yeah, just creating a lot of offense there.”
As Siakam stood a the free-throw line for the game-sealing shots, MVP chants rained down from the standings.
“I think we missed that a lot with having our own home court and having our fans cheering us on,” Siakam said. “It’s been tough just playing with fans, without fans, we talked about this a lot but I just think that it feels good to have our home crowd back and just the energy, the vibe it’s just a little different.”
Put simply, there’s really no argument that Siakam isn’t a top six forward in the NBA. There may be some chicanery that keeps him off the All-NBA team if Embiid or Nikola Jokic take a spot as a first-team center, but as a true NBA forward, he’s one of the best. He’s been incredible all season and lately, he’s only getting better.
Raptors just keep on winning, even if they don’t really need the W’s | Toronto Sun
“I hate to get in that mindset to say the consequences aren’t that (grave),” Nurse said. “To me, we want to win and we want to play really well, period. I just don’t think you can think that way.”
Turns out there was no worry of that.
Not with the way Pascal Siakam is playing as the red-hot Raptors forward poured in another 37 points to go along with 11 assists and 10 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season in a 119-114 win.
Even after a putrid start that saw the Raptors down 15-2 and even without running mate Fred VanVleet who sat out to give his bad right knee a rest, Siakam and Gary Trent Jr. took this one over.
It didn’t matter who the Sixers put on Siakam, he was taking them to the hole and finishing over them, around them and sometimes through them in yet another all-around performance that only further solidifies his expected All-NBA inclusion.
For a while it was like the two Cameroon natives in the game, Siakam and Philly’s Joel Embiid, were going to just go head-to-head and decide this one as they took turns scoring at either end for a chunk fo the third quarter.
But it was Siakam who had the stamina and kept it going while Embiid’s shots began missing the mark as Toronto pulled away.
Siakam also had Trent Jr. and Precious Achiuwa riding shotgun while Embiid was on a bit of an island with James Harden’s scoring AWOL (although he did have 15 assists) for most of the night and none of the other Sixers other than Tyrese Maxey and Danny Green occasionally showing up from behind the arc.
Achiuwa, who got the start with VanVleet in street clothes, had a career night from behind the arc hitting five of six to set a new personal bar. On top of that, he spent the better part of his night defensively keeping the gargantuan Embiid in front of him.
Trent Jr. had a nice complementary game of his own going with a 4-for-7 night from deep and 23 points in all.
