And now the fun begins. We've got what we wanted in the East: a powerhouse final four between Philly, Boston, Toronto and Milwaukee.
Both the Sixers and Raptors finished off their respective first-round opponents in five games on Tuesday night, setting up a Philly vs. Toronto Eastern Conference semi-finals series. The winner will face the winner of Celtics-Bucks in the Eastern Conference Finals.
The question you'll hear at your local tavern, office water cooler, or wherever else is: Can the Sixers beat the Raptors?
The answer is yes. Yes, they can. Will they? That's a different story, but they can.
Regular Season: The Raptors beat the Sixers in three out of their four regular season matchups with a point differential of +35. In the only Sixers' win, Kawhi Leonard did not play. That's the bad news.
The good news is the Sixers did not face the Raptors since the Tobias Harris acquisition. The last time these teams faced on February 5th, the Sixers started Mike Muscala and Landry Shamet. T.J. McConnell led the team with 22 bench minutes, while Furkan Korkmaz had 20. Things are a lot different now.
Lineup: The Raptors added Marc Gasol late in the season, who is now their starting center. Their starting five is Gasol, Leonard, Pascal Siakam, Kyle Lowry, and Danny Green.
Off the bench, the Raptors primarily use three more players: Norman Powell, Serge Ibaka, and Fred VanVleet.
Kyle Lowry's playoff struggles: For his career, Philly native Kyle Lowry is shooting just 41.3% from the field and 33.8% from three in 67 playoff games. This postseason, Lowry is shooting just 43.8% from the field on just 9.6 shot attempts in five games, averaging 11.4 points 8.6 assists, and 3.0 turnovers per game.
It's early, but Lowry struggling in the playoffs is certainly a thing, and he's seemingly become less aggressive on offense for the Raptors as a result.
Pascal Siakam's emergence: This is Siakam's first postseason as a starter, and he's killing it. The 25-year-old 6-9 forward is averaging 22.6 points, 8.4 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 0.8 blocks on 53.3-percent shooting from the field. Siakam is long, athletic, and extremely crafty. He's going to be a difficult guard for the Sixers.
The matchups: It will be interesting to see who the Sixers use to defend Siakam, Leonard, Lowry, and Green (Joel Embiid will take Gasol). I suspect JJ Redick will deal with Green, as he's done an excellent job against Brooklyn's shooter Joe Harris. That leaves Jimmy Butler, Ben Simmons, and Tobias Harris for Siakam, Leonard, and Lowry. Harris the worst defender of the three and since he's too big and not agile enough to guard Lowry, he'll likely get Siakam (at least to start). Meaning, Simmons and Butler will likely take their turns switching between Leonard and Lowry.
Either way, Philadelphia should continue to do a lot of switching.
Free-throw line: This is going to be the X-factor in the series for Philadelphia. The Sixers were second in the NBA at getting to the line (27.5 attempts per game) led by Embiid, while the Raptors were 21st in the NBA (22.0 attempts per game). If they can get to the line, knock down free-throws, and keep Toronto off of the line, they'll have a good opportunity to win this series.
None of the Raptors' top-eight players shot worse than Ibaka's 76.3% free-throw mark.
For the Sixers, only Ben Simmons is their only starter who shoots under 80% from the line. After a 1-5 Game 1 free-throw performance from Simmons, he has gone 13-19 from the line since then this postseason. Simmons has struggled against the Raptors (specifically Leonard) this season, but no matter what he'll need to make free-throws.
Prediction: Sixers in six. Split in Toronto, split in Philly, Sixers get Game 5 in Toronto and close it out in Game 6 in Philly.
