Welcome to the Basketball Hangover. NBA Playoff Basketball is afoot!
Raptors survive those pesky Nets and take a 2-0 series lead.
(PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin C. Cox/USA Today.)
I keep harping about the Toronto Raptors here. I really do think they are legit and I can see them repeating. Yes, Kawhi Leonard has since moved back to Southern California. But that championship, like many other teams in the past, has given them that aura.
I guess their only fault was that they couldn’t get past LeBron James in the Eastern Conference. Once he moved to SoCal (like Kawhi would a year later), the road opened up. A few bounces later, the Canadian franchise made its first NBA Finals appearance. And then they took advantage of a beat-up Golden State Warriors team, who had won three of the last four titles. The Toronto Raptors are your NBA champions.
And this season? While everyone looked at both L.A. teams and the Milwaukee Bucks, the Raptors adjusted to their post-Kawhi life and hummed along. Kyle Lowry continued to be brilliant. Pascal Siakam had become the #1 option and should’ve been a finalist for Most Improved Player for the second time. Fred VanVleet became even better in an increased role. And it became a next man up mentality as they withstood injuries to their core guys and kept winning. Nick Nurse has quickly become one of the best coaches in the league as he brought out different looks on defense that would confuse every team.
Now they’re going against the Nets, who went from star-laden to a ragtag bunch. It’s like going from *NSYNC to like… oh, I don’t know… O-Town? Do you remember O-Town?
(VIDEO CREDIT: O-Town.)
Anyway, Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen, and Joe Harris are probably the only recognizable faces left from Brooklyn. They went through a coaching change before the pandemic got here. But Jacque Vaughn got the most out of his guys by going 5-3 in the seeding games.
The Raptors pounced on them in Game 1, though (which broke a long-standing tradition of Raptors losing Game 1s). That’s what champions do. The Nets did come back strong in Game 2. They went up by 12 early and of course, there was a thought of an upset.
But VanVleet and Norman Powell did their thing in their small ball line-up. Taking advantage of the Nets’ short rotation due to unfamiliarity, the Raptors came back and took a 3-point lead late. Brooklyn had a chance to tie but Garrett Temple lost the ball and it led to a game-clinching dunk by Powell, who scored 24 points.
The Toronto Raptors have learned to adapt in whatever situation. They can pull out the close games. They can come back from 30 down (yes, that happened). They can grind it out. They can run on you. While they’re in the middle of the pack in offensive rating (they are 14th at 111.1 points per 100 possessions), they have a lot of very capable scorers in Siakam, Lowry, VanVleet, Powell, etc. The Raptors don’t have the best halfcourt offense but teams shouldn’t take their eyes off them for even a second. Let me say once again that they’re the champs. Their players have sky-high confidence right now and they have a mad scientist in Nurse ready to adjust. Remember when the Raptors went junior high on the Warriors in the Finals last year by employing the Box and 1 defense? They’re not above doing something like that again.
The road to the Finals goes through Toronto. Except everyone is stuck in Orlando so never mind the first sentence of this paragraph.
Bullet Passes
I want to address the Masai Ujiri incident from last season VERY briefly. It is INSANE that the Alameda Police is standing by their statement about Masai Ujiri, Toronto Raptors president, was the aggressor in that exchange.
All I know is that the video is very clear. But that cop is just another example of a racist abusing his power. AGAIN. This makes me so mad.
On to basketball…
So naturally, the focus of the Nuggets would be on Donovan Mitchell. And this shouldn’t have been a surprise but the Utah Jazz decided to have an offense that was more team-oriented. And then Mitchell burned it down.
Donovan went for 21 points in the third, effectively putting the game out of reach for the Nuggets. The Jazz went for 32 assists (14 more than Game 1). The series is tied now as the scene now shifts to… well, nowhere. We’re still in a pandemic, guys. But normally, it would shift to the city of Utah.
Mike Conley should be available for the Jazz next game.
Gordon Hayward is out for the next month but Boston still has that scary wing tandem of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Tatum is getting all the attention and rightfully so. I even wrote about him in late February.
But there’s kind of a reason why I picked Boston to win in a short series; Philadelphia continues to be plagued with miscasted players, lack of shooters, and injuries (Ben Simmons is out). And the Sixers also have to think that they don’t have a home court to go back to in the next couple of games. Ouch.
Now people are going to be furious about Game 1 all over again because the Mavericks just handled the Clippers in Game 2. Dallas outgunned the Clips. Luka Doncic went for 28-8-7 and the NOT-ejected Kristaps Porzingis (yeah, I know) went for 23 points. Plus the Mavs got a boost from ex-Clipper Boban Marjanovic with a quick 13 points and 9 boards!
Kawhi Leonard did what he could (35 points and 10 boards but Paul George has to shoot better than 4 for 17 (14 points).
Luka now has the record for most points in his first two playoff games with 70 points, besting the one and only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Oh, and this Inside The NBA interview with Boban is a treat:
(VIDEO CREDIT: NBA on TNT.)
Shaquille O’Neal looked SO HAPPY at the end of this video.
YOU RANG?!
NBA Playoff Scoreboard
Game 2: #2 TOR 104 vs #7 BRK 99 (TOR leads, 2-0)
Game 2: #3 DEN 105 vs #6 UTA 124 (Series tied at 1-1)
Game 2: #3 BOS 128 vs #6 PHI 101 (BOS leads series, 2-0)
Game 2: #2 LAC 114 vs #7 DAL 127 (Series tied at 1-1)
Watch This Play
Jaylen Brown is such a showoff with that 360.
JAYLEN BROWN 360 🌪 pic.twitter.com/mDyVGxUlSv
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) August 20, 2020
Boston is looking great, as we said!
Stay safe, everyone in the Disney bubble!
Rey-Rey is on Twitter at @TheNoLookPass.
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