The Toronto Raptors began their best of seven Eastern Conference playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers just as everyone expected–with a rout. Since then, however, they’ve been a profound disappointment. Following their opening game win they’ve lost 2 straight to go down 2-1 in the series. Sunday’s Game 4 in Philadelphia is a veritable ‘must win’ spot for Toronto to avoid going down 3-1. The desperate circumstances of a NBA team down 3-0 in a playoff series is well known. A team down 3-1 is only marginally better off–they’ve got an all time series record of 11-233 (4.5%). NBA teams down 2-1 playing Game 4 on the road win only 39.1% of the time so a victory is far from guaranteed for Toronto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Raptors have looked downright listless compared to the energy displayed by the Sixers. With the exception of Kawhi Leonard (averaging 31.5 PPG) and power forward Pascal Siakam (22.9 PPG 7.4 RPG in the playoffs) they’re not getting much out of anyone on the team. Kyle Lowry is averaging just 11.6 PPG in the playoffs nearly 3 per game less than his regular season average. Serge Ibaka has been almost a non-factor during the playoffs. As if the Raptors’ situation could get any worse the aformentioned Siakam is listed as ‘doubtful’ for Game 4<\/a> with a calf contusion. Making the injury all the more frustrating is the fact that no one can really figure out when it happened during Game 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Toronto looked like a legit challenger for the Eastern Conference title heading into the playoffs. They finished just 2 games behind Milwaukee with their NBA best record. They were tied for the second best home record in the NBA (32-9) and had the second best road record as well (26-15). They were tied for #3 in scoring offense and tied for #6 in scoring defense. They looked to be a qualitative measure above the Sixers in every phase of the game. Philadelphia’s Game 2 victory broke a 13 game Sixers losing streak in Toronto and the Raptors looked equally as bad in Game 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If there’s a case to be made for Toronto–or more appropriately, against Philadelphia–it could be due to the Sixers not managing success particularly well. Philadelphia is 12-13 SU\/8-17 ATS this year after a 10+ point win. They’re also 4-7 ATS off of an upset win as an underdog and 22-33 (41.1%) after a SU win in any NBA pointspread<\/a> role. They also have shown a tendency to regress after a strong offensive performance and are 18-29 ATS following a game where they score 115+ points. Toronto did show some pluck following a double digit loss–after a loss by 10 or more the Raptors were 8-1 SU\/6-2 ATS this year. On the other hand, Toronto enters Game 4 on a 1-10 SU\/2-8 ATS run in the second round of the playoffs during the past three years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the best handicapping lessons I ever learned is definitely applicable here: ‘No team is as bad as they look at their worst or as good as they look at their best’. I’m just not sold on the Sixers nor am I ready to completely fade a Raptors team that looked excellent for most of the regular season. As a result, the play is on Toronto to even the series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n BET TORONTO RAPTORS +2 OVER PHILADELPHIA 76ERS<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Toronto Raptors began their best of seven Eastern Conference playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers just as everyone expected–with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5486,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5484\/revisions\/5486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}