With less than a quarter of the NBA regular season left to play, the Toronto Raptors playoffs positioning is better than ever before. The Raptors sit second in the Eastern Conference (before the games of March 11th), just two and a half games behind the Cleveland Cavaliers for first. Toronto is in position to shatter its franchise best 49-33 regular season record, which it set last season. But with their team having lost in the first round of the playoffs in each of the last two seasons, Raptors fans have to be concerned about who Toronto faces to start this time. After all, match-ups are crucial to determining which teams move on in the postseason, regardless of who the better teams are. Many of us Raptors fans feel that if the team can win just one round, the players will gain the confidence to more easily dispatch an inferior team later on. While Paul Pierce is no longer in the East to terrorize the Raptors in their first round series, many dangerous teams still loom as potential opponents for Toronto. Just three games separate the fifth and ninth place teams in the East, meaning that five teams still have a chance to be Toronto’s next postseason foe.
Here in part one, I’ll take a look at how the Detroit Pistons, Chicago Bulls, and Charlotte Hornets would match up with the Raptors in a playoff series. Stay tuned for part two, in which I’ll cover Toronto’s potential meetings with the Indiana Pacers and Atlanta Hawks.
Potential Toronto Raptors Playoffs Match-ups (Part One)
Detroit Pistons
Season Series: Toronto won 2-1
I covered why teams should not want to face Detroit in a playoff series here, so I won’t say much more. The Raptors should still be favored if these two teams square off, but it would be a difficult match-up for Toronto. As HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons opined in a recent podcast, this Detroit team could even give problems to Cleveland in a playoff series, so they’d undoubtedly compete with Toronto.
One x-factor in favor of the Raptors, though, is that Jonas Valanciunas has fared well against Andre Drummond and the Pistons throughout his career, with averages of 14.9 points and 8.7 rebounds per game, shooting a scorching 62.3 percent from the field. He’ll have to perform at a high level and stay out of foul trouble for the Raptors to win a series between these two.
Chicago Bulls
Season Series: Chicago leads 3-0
Do regular season results matter? They certainly didn’t last season, when the Raptors swept their season series with the Washington Wizards, only to be dominated by that same team in the playoffs. But time and time again, the Bulls have had Toronto’s number in the regular season. The Raptors have beaten every team in the Eastern Conference this season except for the Bulls; they’ve lost eight straight to the Bulls over the last three seasons. To be fair, this Chicago team is much better than its 32-31 record and ninth place standing in the East (going into its game on March 11th); the Bulls have simply been plagued by health and chemistry issues all season. They have one of the best starting lineups in the league, along with several talented scoring threats off the bench. But despite struggling against most of the league this season, Chicago has managed to beat Toronto every time. So why do the Raptors have so much trouble in this match-up?
Although Valanciunas scores in the post with relative ease against Pau Gasol, Gasol has torched Toronto’s defense for years, going back to his days in Memphis and Los Angeles. Furthermore, Jimmy Butler presents all sorts of problems for the Raptors. Butler consistently gives DeMar DeRozan fits with his elite defense on the wing, forcing the Raptors to look for sources of offense besides their leading scorer. On the other side of the floor, Butler hasn’t hurt the Raptors too much in the past couple years, but there’s an obvious exception that strikes fear in the hearts of Raptors fans: Butler recently topped Michael Jordan’s franchise record for points in a half, scoring 40 in the second half of a January game in Toronto. The Raptors will need DeMarre Carroll to come back near full strength for their playoff run, if they do indeed face the Bulls; Carroll is their best defender to throw at Butler, if nothing else.
If the Raptors struggle to contain Butler and Gasol, and DeRozan can’t find a way to be effective on offense, this appears to be Toronto’s nightmare match-up. Not everything in the NBA makes sense, and this is one of those things: despite everything the Raptors have accomplished, they just can’t seem to figure out Chicago. Toronto doesn’t want to have to do that in the playoffs.
Charlotte Hornets
Season Series: Currently tied 1-1
Charlotte is another team that has given the Raptors problems in the regular season, winning six straight games between the two teams before Toronto took three of the last four. Kemba Walker – like most quick, aggressive scoring point guards – has given the Raptors fits over the years. A rejuvenated Nicolas Batum has helped the Hornets improve their offense immensely, allowing them to compete for a solid playoff position. Charlotte has won 11 of its last 13 games, and is currently tied with Atlanta for fifth in the East. Even so, the Hornets are only a game and a half ahead of the seventh place Pacers, so for now, a Toronto-Charlotte series is still in play.
Despite their offensive improvements, the Hornets lost Raptor-killer Gerald Henderson this summer – a guy who averages more points against Toronto than any other opponent, for his career. Even with Batum and Jeremy Lamb on the wing, nothing the Hornets have now quite scares Torontonians like Henderson did. Sure, it seems silly, but Henderson’s odd game always complemented Walker well, and Batum doesn’t quite have the explosive driving game that allowed Henderson to constantly blow by DeRozan.
At the end of the day, this match-up would heavily favor the Raptors, as for once, they’d have at least as much playoff experience as their opponent – an advantage that they didn’t have in the previous two years. The one-on-one match-ups work well for Toronto, and Lowry would be able to neutralize or outplay Walker. Beyond Walker, Charlotte just doesn’t have the creative offensive threats to really threaten the Raptors, nor the stingy defense to frustrate them on the other end of the floor.
