Image via Getty/Cole Burston
By now, you’ve probably heard that no team has ever come back from down 3-0 to win a best-of-seven series in NBA history, with 143 teams going down 3-0 and failing to accomplish the feat. However, three teams have rallied to force a Game 7, and what many consider impossible has in fact been accomplished in other professional leagues, including the NHL and MLB. So it’s only a matter of time before it happens in the NBA, right?
The Toronto Raptors are sure acting like it, winning back-to-back games over the Philadelphia 76ers to cut the series deficit to 3-2, with a chance to force a Game 7 when they host the Sixers in Toronto on Thursday night. They are halfway to making history, overcoming a lot of adversity on the way.
The Raptors were blown out the first two games of the series and have been without each of Scottie Barnes, Gary Trent Jr., Thad Young, and Fred VanVleet for parts of this series, with VanVleet likely to miss the remaining games with a hip flexor strain. They are the one of the youngest and least experienced teams in the league, playing against an MVP finalist in Joel Embiid (who is also dealing with a thumb injury) and a former-MVP in James Harden. The Raptors should be afraid and yet, after losing Game 3 at the buzzer, they have won the last two games by a decisive margin of 23 points. They’ve done it by ratcheting up their defence, leaning on their do-it-all superstar, and forcing the Sixers to confront their playoff demons.
The Raptors have all of the momentum and a legitimate chance of becoming the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3-0 series deficit and win. Here are three reasons why they could accomplish the impossible and find themselves in the record books for years to come.
Defence Wins… Series
After allowing 131 and 112 points to the Sixers in Games 1 and 2 of this highly-anticipated opening round series, the Raptors have figured out how to guard Joel Embiid and Co. as the series has gone on, limiting them to 104, 102, and 88 points on just 43.8 percent shooting over the last three games.
They’ve done it by executing on their frantic and aggressive defensive scheme without fouling, sending multiple big bodies at Embiid every time he touches the ball, forcing him to pass out of double and triple-teams and daring the other Sixers to beat them. Only instead of giving wide open shots to the other Sixers like we saw at the start of this series, the Raptors are making multiple efforts and rotations to close out on shooters and make them think, causing the Sixers to turn over the ball 16 times in each of the previous two games, where the Raptors scored an average of 21 points off of those turnovers.
Plus, after the Sixers got to the free-throw line at a league-high rate during the regular season and the first two games of the playoffs—going to the line 34 and 30 times in Games 1 and 2—they have been limited to 20, 25, and 20 free throws over the previous three games.
“I talked about it after the first two games and you guys asked me what the hell’s wrong with your defense? And I said: ‘everything!’ And I meant kind of all those foundational principles: First transition was a huge problem. We weren’t good at that at all. Our ball pressure wasn’t good enough. Our shot contesting wasn’t good enough and our rebounding wasn’t good enough,” Nick Nurse said about the defensive improvement. “Those are our four foundational principles, and we’ve just gotten so much better at all four of those, and then it allows us to get our defense set and then we can get to some of the schemes and things we’re doing.”
With Embiid limited and increasingly fatigued, the Raptors are also doing a great job on Harden and sophomore guard Tyrese Maxey, who lit up the Raptors in the first couple games of this series with his speed and rim-pressure, averaging 30.5 points on 69/57/100 percent shooting splits. Since then, the Raptors have run those two off of the 3-point line and forced them to make tough shots over the second line of their defence, holding the duo to average under 17 points each on worse than 40 percent shooting. After the Sixers scored just 88 points in Game 5, Embiid had this to say about Harden, who only took 11- hots:
“I’ve been saying all season since he got here: he needs to be aggressive and he needs to be himself. That’s not really my job, that’s probably on coach to talk to him and tell him to take more shots. Especially if they’re going to guard me the way they’ve been guarding. But that’s really not my job.”
Clearly, the Raptors suffocating defence is getting to the Sixers, who are becoming frustrated with the refereeing and, by the sounds of it, with eachother. If the Raptors keep up this elite level of defence and continue making the Sixers overthink things, they will have a real chance of coming back in this series.
Star Power
Perhaps the second-most important axiom behind “defence wins championships” is that “superstars win championships,” and that is exactly what Pascal Siakam has been over the last two games, where he has outplayed Embiid and has averaged 29-9-6 on 56/38/82 percent shooting splits to will the Raptors to consecutive wins in elimination games.
What’s most impressive is that Siakam is doing it on both sides of the basketball, organizing the defence as the most experienced player on the floor as he defends everyone from Maxey to Embiid while also running the offence as the primary facilitator with VanVleet out of the series. It’s no wonder Siakam has a series-high net-rating of +37 over the past two games, finding the balance of getting his teammates involved and scoring when the Raptors are desperately in need of a bucket.
“I thought he was composed, he was taking his time when he needed to, he was finding people, especially late,” Nurse said after Game 5 of Siakam’s 7-assist night. “He made some big tough buckets when there wasn’t much going and those are huge: Your scorer needs to produce some baskets on his own sometimes and he was able to do that.”
Or just listen to the way his teammates talk about Siakam, with Gary Trent Jr. saying after Game 4: “He was exceptional. That’s Pascal Siakam. He’s been doing this all year. He’s always done this. He always does this. Just another performance by Siakam.”
Or OG Anunoby, who said after Game 5: “Just give him the ball, get out of the way. He’s a really talented player. He can score from anywhere. And he makes his teammates better, so he led us to a victory today.”
Thad Young, who’s been around a lot of great players in his 15-year NBA career, said Siakam was able to bounce back from a disappointing Game 3 loss—where he failed to score in the second-half and overtime—because of his “Resilience.” Adding: “He’s always been a resilient player. He’s always gonna fight through adversity. He knows his game. He knows who he is as a player. He knows how to bounce back and come back from having not so good games. That’s exactly what he did.”
Of course, it’s not just Siakam that has raised his level of play for the Raptors, with the team getting key contributions down the roster: Trent Jr. has provided timely shot-making as a release-valve when the Raptors needed a bucket, averaging 20-points over the past two games; Anunoby has been the Raptors best 3-point shooter and one of their best and most switchable defenders; Young has helped facilitate off the bench, racking up 8 assists over his past two games, many of them going to Chris Boucher, who is providing a great energy boost off the bench; Precious Achiuwa has figured out how to effectively guard Embiid, which has been one of the biggest differences in this series; and Scottie Barnes is looking a lot more like himself since returning from an ankle injury in Game 4, getting better as the series goes along.
That’s all good and nice. But in the playoffs, star power trumps all. It’s no wonder that Embiid was the best player in the first three games of this series, all Sixers wins. Or that Siakam was the best player in the previous two games, both Raptors wins. If Siakam can keep up this level of play, the Raptors are going to be hard to beat.
The Ghosts of Playoffs Past
While it’s true that no team has ever come back from down 3-0 to win a playoff series in NBA history, 13 teams have come back from 3-1. As Nurse said, “I think it’s a heckuva challenge, and somebody’s got to do it. That’s the way I look at it. Somebody’s got to do it. And if it gets to 3-1, it’s not 3-0 anymore. And 3-1’s been done.”
Speaking of which, Sixers head coach Doc Rivers has been on the wrong end of three of those 3-1 series comebacks, the most of any coach in NBA history. Rivers has now lost 7 of his last 8 opportunities to close out a series, and his 31 losses in closeout games are also the most by a coach in NBA history. His inability to make in-series adjustments has hurt his teams before, and while he believes that the Sixers have another “gear that we haven’t used the last two games,” there might not be a coach more likely to fold in the face of adversity than Rivers.
Plus, Harden is not without his fair share of playoff demons. The two-time MVP has struggled in elimination games throughout his career, averaging just 24 points on 43/33/84 shooting splits while turning over the ball 4.5 times a game. That, coupled with Embiid historically getting worse and more tired the longer the series goes on, is reason for concern, especially considering that the Sixers went all in at the trade deadline to acquire Harden and in all likelihood pay him a max contract this summer.
The Sixers, after tanking several years in a row the early aughts to accrue a historical number of high draft picks (including the rights to Embiid) in what was termed “The Process,” are yet to get out of the second-round of the playoffs since 2001, when Allen Iverson was still leading the team. They have high expectations and a ton of pressure, which is why it wasn’t all that surprising to hear their fans “boo” them during Game 5 or to see the players getting frustrated when things weren’t going their way. Now that the Raptors have finally landed a punch, will the Sixers be able to hit back? Or will they fold in the face of adversity like they have many times before?
Image via Getty/Steve Russell/Toronto Star
That remains to be seen, but what we do know is that the Raptors are going to continue being the cool, calm, and composed team that they have all season long. Despite their youth and injuries, the Raptors have fought back in this series because they are a group of fighters with chips on their shoulders; underdogs who have been passed over throughout their basketball careers and who are used to overcoming adversity. Rather than blame each other, they are a group that sticks together every night. As Young put it:
“I’m not surprised at all [about our composure]. These guys, from Day 1 when I got here, seemed like a great group of guys who are very poised… We go out there and we play as hard as we can, everybody listens to each other, no one man is bigger than the team, and that’s why we’re able to go out there and win basketball games; why we’re able to get ourselves back into this series.”
While the 3-0 comeback has never been done, there is a first time for everything. And as Nurse told his players after losing Game 3: “If somebody could do it, it would be us.”