On April 26, Beijing time, Philadelphia lost 88-103 at home to the Raptors, with an aggregate score of 3-2. You may be curious, isn't this still ahead? What did Rivers panic about? After the first three games, Philadelphia is 3-0 ahead. G4 Raptors home 110-102 to win a set, today away again to win, G6 back to the Raptors home, will it be 3-3?
In NBA history, there have been 143 0-3 lags. Only three of them were chased to a 3-3 draw, dragging until the seven battles, but no team was able to turn the tables over. Will the Raptors make history? Since the Bucks in the first round of the 2015 playoffs, the Raptors are the only team to win two games in a row from 3-0, and they deserve admiration!
Siakam broke out in two consecutive games, and after G4's 34+8+5, today he shot 10-of-17, 2-of-4 from three-point range, 1 of 2 from the free throw line, and had 23 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists, a plus-minus +24 all-game high. G2 and G3 Siakam performed poorly, shooting 11-of-36 from the field together and scoring just 32 points in both games combined. Fortunately, he adjusted in time!
Of course, the Raptors can win without the efforts of the whole team. Achuva played 27 minutes off the bench, shooting 7-of-11 and having 17 points, 7 rebounds and 3 blocks. All of Philadelphia's benches combined, today only scored 11 points. Young barnes just won the best rookie, 12 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals on 5-of-10 shooting, too comprehensive!
Barnes retired from injury at G1, neither G2 nor G3. G4 Barnes returned, shooting 1-of-6 and scoring just 6 points on 4-of-5 free throws, but he grabbed 11 rebounds and gave up 2 assists. Today, Van Jordan is suspended due to a hip injury, and the Raptors started 4 of the 5 players with a height of more than 2 meters, the shortest being Gary Trent Jr. (1m 96).
Van Jordan does not play, the raptors on the court five people on the court are almost the same height, can change defenses indefinitely, this is modern basketball! Embiid had previously suffered a torn ligament in his right thumb, but he refused surgery and decided to do it again after the season. Embiid didn't feel good today, shooting 7-of-15, 0-of-4 from three-point range, 6-of-6 from the free throw line, and had 20 points, 11 rebounds and 4 assists.
Harden has been in poor form in his last two games, with G4 shooting 5-of-17 and 2-of-8 three-pointers to 22 points, 5 boards and 9 assists. Dengo played 40 minutes today, shooting 4 of 11, 2 of 6 three-pointers, 5 of 6 from the free throw line, 15 points, 2 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 break, 1 cap and 5 turnovers. So far in the series, Ha has averaged 18.4 points, 4.8 boards and 9.2 assists, shooting only 37.3% from the field.
Former NBA player Fry was puzzled by Harden's performance: "Is Harden injured? He didn't show any explosive power! "Now that Embiid is fighting with injuries, Deng ge must stand up!" Otherwise it could really be overturned...
From 0-3 to 2-3, the most panicked is not Harden and Embiid, but Rivers! Since 2015, Rivers has coached a team that has only lost 3-11 in the series finale. Looking back at Lao Lee's entire coaching career, his winning percentage at the end of the series was only 32.6%, and he lost a total of 31 games, the first in NBA history!
Consider the history of Rivers' reversals, not to mention those who were reversed 3-2, let's only take stock of the series in which the 3-1 or 2-0 lead was reversed:
In the 2003 playoffs, Rivers led the Magic 3-1 ahead of the Pistons and was overturned; in the 2015 playoffs, Rivers led the Clippers to lead the Rockets 3-1 and was overturned; in the 2016 playoffs, Rivers led the Clippers to lead the Blazers 2-0 and was overturned; in the 2020 playoffs, Rivers led the Clippers to lead the Nuggets 3-1 and was overturned.
Of course, the Raptors are still two wins away from a reversal, and it may be too early to say a reversal. But some of the NBA experiences are like metaphysics, and Rivers is used to the title of "god of reversals"! One thing to say, who do you think will win this series?