In this season's NBA Eastern Conference playoffs, the 76ers with the dual core system of Harden and Embiid encountered the Toronto Raptors in the first round, although the 76ers ranked higher, but in the four direct conversations in the regular season, the Raptors achieved an impressive record of 3 wins and 1 loss, coupled with their excellent performance for the top four teams in the East, making them a veritable strong team nemesis this season, which was also before the start of this round of series. Many experts believe that the Raptors were able to advance to the second round with the following grams! But in the first game between the two sides, the 76ers won the Raptors by their own destruction of the attack, and in the game, barnes, who had performed well in the rookie season, was stepped on by Embiid, causing him to be injured and unable to play in the second game between the two sides, which made the gap between the strength of the two sides widen, and sure enough, after the game officially started, the 76ers quickly grasped the initiative, at most 29 points ahead of the opponent, although the Raptors launched a strong counterattack in the last quarter, but they were not able to stage a big reversal. In the end, he also lost to the 76ers again 97-112, and fell behind 0-2 in the series, falling into a passive situation!
In the draft before the start of the season, barnes, the Raptors selected with the fourth pick in the first round, was one of the best performers in this rookie, played 74 games for the team in the regular season, averaged 15.3 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.1 steals per game, and was also a popular candidate for the best rookie, it can be said that he has become one of the indispensable players in the Raptors' offensive and defensive system, and the impact of his inability to appear on the Raptors can be imagined.
After the lack of Barnes, a stable end on the offensive end, the 76ers also freed up their hands, had more energy to limit the Raptors' core Siakam and VanVleet inside and outside, and achieved obvious results, Siakam in this game, although he cut 20 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists of the full data, but his offensive efficiency is very low, 20 shots only hit 7 goals, as an interior player, such shooting rate is obviously not passed.
VanVleet in the Maxi and Harden rotation of consumption, also did not have the style of Van Jordan, the whole game crazy shot 23 times, but only hit 7 goals, of which the three-point shot only 16 shots 5 performance, got 20 points, 4 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks, but also appeared 4 mistakes, it can be said that the personal performance is far from meeting the expectations of the outside world.
The 76ers defensive end of the crazy target Siakam and VanVleet, but also gave the Raptors other players a lot of opportunities to shoot, Anunoby this game is hot, 7 from outside the three-point line 4, cut the team's highest 26 points, but this is a situation that the 76ers can fully accept, after all, the Raptors want to rely on role players to beat the 76ers is very unrealistic.
After losing this game, the Raptors fell behind 0-2, Harden and Embiid played well and beat the so-called experts who were not optimistic about them before the game, and also let many 76ers fans say that the strong team nemesis is just like this, in the end after returning to Toronto, whether the Raptors can stop the decline, let's wait and see!