Raptors fans don’t want to see run end yet
TORONTO – Three years after the Raptors final performed post-season basketball at residence, no one on this aspect of the border desires to see Toronto’s run finish but.
The Raptors face elimination for the third consecutive time Thursday night time after they host the Philadelphia 76ers in a do-or-die Sport 6 of their opening-round playoff sequence.
“Raptors in 7” was trending on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon.
Raptors ahead and Montreal native Chris Boucher stated the joy from followers is palpable. And the sensation is mutual.
“It’s superb,” Boucher stated. “They convey a lot motivation. You’ll be able to really feel that basketball hasn’t been on the town for thus lengthy. The followers are into it. We’re going to wish them for Sport 6. It’s an enormous sport. We will’t do it with out them.”
The final Raptors post-season run at residence, after all, noticed them go all the way in which to successful an NBA championship in 2019.
The Raptors shrugged off an unruly Sixers crowd in Philly in Monday’s 103-88 win.
“I really feel like a whole lot of their followers (behind the) bench, they have been speaking reckless, to be trustworthy with you,” Boucher stated. “If they might have received the sport, I guess they might have stated a whole lot of stuff. Luckily, we did. Me and Valuable (Achiuwa) had fun speaking again to him.”
Associated Movies
The Raptors are two wins away from being the primary group in NBA historical past to win a best-of-seven sequence after trailing 3-0. Whereas they nonetheless path 3-2, the pendulum appears to swinging in Toronto’s favour. The Raptors have led or been tied a staggering 92.8 per cent over the past three video games. And if not for Joel Embiid’s clutch three-pointer to win Sport 3, the Raptors could be within the place to shut out the sequence in Sport 6.
Whereas the Raptors have been a free bunch on Wednesday, Sixers coach Doc Rivers was lashing out at reporters for questions on his historical past of coughing up sequence leads.
Rivers is the one coach to have given up three 3-1 leads. His most up-to-date, within the Disneyworld bubble in 2020, was a surprising upset. The L.A. Clippers, led by Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, blew a 3-1 result in the Denver Nuggets regardless of being up by double digits within the last three video games.
“Let’s win it,” Rivers informed reporters after Wednesday’s apply. “Then we don’t have to speak about it.”
Sixers centre Joel Embiid, the league’s main scorer within the common season, additionally suffered a torn ligament in his thumb in Sport 3, an harm that can require surgical procedure within the low season. It’s an identical harm that former Raptors guard Kyle Lowry performed with all through the 2019 championship run.
Lowry famously wore a padded compression glove he referred to as his oven mitt nearly each minute he wasn’t practising or enjoying, to maintain his thumb from swelling and promote circulation. He underwent surgical procedure shortly after Toronto received the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
One other potential plus for the Raptors is that they haven’t had a good three-point capturing sport, regardless of getting open pictures. Simply 25.8 per cent of their threes fell in Sport 5. Their 32.1 per cent from lengthy distance ranks them thirteenth of the 18 post-season groups. They averaged 34.9 per cent within the common season.
“I feel they’re fairly good (pictures),” Nurse stated. “The factor that I feel we’ve performed very nicely is making yet one more cross currently, they’re kicking it out and so they’re rotating arduous to that first man and he’s simply transferring it to a wide-open man within the nook, in order that’s been encouraging.”
So is an enormous sport due?
“They’re going to begin getting in, I hold saying that,” Nurse laughed. “Subsequent sport will probably be pretty much as good as any for them to begin getting in.”
A Sport 7 if wanted could be in Philadelphia on Saturday. The sequence winner faces the Miami Warmth within the Jap Convention semifinals.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed April 28, 2022.
