Rarely has a team entered the playoffs with an MVP candidate and as little confidence from the public as this year’s Sixers. Thanks to erratic play down the stretch and 3-1 season series loss to these Toronto Raptors, there are a lot of people going into this round one matchup preparing for a Philadelphia loss.

Going 0-2 against Toronto in the final month of the season certainly hasn’t helped matters. Considering the opponents they could have drawn in the first round, the Raptors are among the toughest stylistically, a group with equal parts championship experience and youthful exuberance, led by a head coach willing to throw just about anything at you to give his team an edge.

So let’s dive into this one, starting with season-long trends and an overview of what this team is about.

Styles and stats

A quick disclaimer before we flash the chart — effective field-goal percentage (or EFG) adjusts the normal field-goal percentage stat to account for three-point makes being worth more than two-point makes. Pretty simple. 

On the surface, the Raptors look like the sort of team who might absolutely kill you on the break. As a matter of team-building philosophy, Masai Ujiri has loaded the roster with interchangeable, ultra-long athletes on the wing, players who can turn you over and overwhelm you after getting a stop, one 6'8" guy running off of another 6'8" guy who has the ball in his hands. Sometimes, your first glance at a team can tell you a lot. Despite playing one of the slowest paces in the league, the Raptors rank No. 1 in the NBA in points off turnovers as a percentage of their offense (17.3). Only the Minnesota Timberwolves create more turnovers per game than their opponents, and the Raptors are hellish to deal with once they actually get moving. 

Some of that is by necessity because points are hard to come by in all other contexts. The Raptors rank 26th in the NBA in points per play in the halfcourt this season, per Cleaning The Glass, the lowest mark of any team who made the playoffs outright. Unless the New Orleans Pelicans manage to make the postseason out of the play-in, Toronto's halfcourt offense will be the worst in the playoffs by a decent margin. To illustrate how unique the Raptors are — 10 of the top-15 halfcourt offenses in the league made the playoffs outright, and four more (Atlanta, Brooklyn, Charlotte, and Minnesota) are in the play-in tournament. To get around that, you need to be killer in other areas.

Bad news for Philadelphia: Toronto's way of overcoming that is by being an absolutely outrageous rebounding team. They collect 32.5 percent of available offensive rebounds, second behind only the Memphis Grizzlies, and as we have seen in recent meetings between the Sixers and Raptors, they are capable of dominating stretches with their activity against this specific opponent. It's a toxic combination of lethargy, poor fundamentals and minimal athleticism on Philly's end combined with urgency, athleticism, and roster construction on Toronto's end.

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Good news for Philadelphia: they're on the positive side of the health matchup for this series if you separate Matisse Thybulle's vaccination status from the injury report. Raptors guard Fred Van Vleet is one of the biggest swing factors in this series. Dealing with a knee injury since February, Van Vleet has been in and out of the lineup and mostly ineffective when he has played, shooting 29.1 percent from three and 34.3 percent from the field in 15 appearances following the All-Star break. While Van Vleet had a horror series in the 2019 series Philadelphia lost in seven games, he's much better equipped to exploit a smaller, less imposing Sixers team this time around. Whether he's able to do so with the troublesome knee — and whether OG Anunoby plays well after dealing with a finger injury for the back half of this season — is certainly up for debate.

With Van Vleet on the mend, Pascal Siakam has taken an even larger share of responsibility, and as the Sixers learned the hard way on April 7, he can punish you on good nights. Missing Thybulle for a minimum of two games will give Siakam a good chance to get rolling mid-series if he isn't already, and how Rivers chooses to deal with Toronto's like-sized lineup is a fascinating question. In 2019, the Sixers had success when Brett Brown moved Embiid onto Pascal Siakam and Tobias Harris onto Marc Gasol, successfully using Embiid as more of a roamer with Siakam's outside shot not there for most of the series. That team, though, was much bigger and more switchable, and breakdowns in individual assignments could be passed between Embiid, Ben Simmons, Jimmy Butler, and Harris with varying degrees of success. Asking Embiid to guard Siakam in this series is a taller task, both because Siakam has improved and because he has less help to close off scoring avenues, but it's the route I assume Philadelphia will go.

A lot may come down to coaching, which will scare the Doc Rivers skeptics in Philadelphia. Nick Nurse is a creative coach who will try just about anything to slow down an opponent's stars, and the top-heavy Sixers might just unravel if he pushes the right buttons.

Matchups to watch

Toronto's flexibility vs. James Harden

The No. 1 question for the Sixers heading into the playoffs is whether Harden has an extra gear to summon for the games that really matter. He doesn't have to be "washed" for temporary limitations with his athleticism to loom large against Toronto, and if he is saving a bit of extra juice for the postseason, people will pivot on this team pretty quickly.

Harden's overwhelmingly positive impact on the offense has had limitations when opposing teams have switched primary actions, forcing him to beat players one-on-one instead of picking apart defenses that are sending two at the ball (or better yet, dropping toward the rim). More than any other team they could have drawn in round one, the Raptors are equipped to switch everything while suffering very little for it. Trading one big, athletic forward for another big, athletic forward doesn't tilt a possession in Harden's favor.

As we documented here last week, Harden's inability to beat switches left him looking ordinary in their last meeting with Toronto. When the two teams played back in March, he had a much easier time beating the first level of Toronto's defense and making things happen, matchups be damned. Turnovers are what ultimately doomed him in that game — Harden coughed the ball up six times, including two that came attached to offensive fouls when he barreled into Raptors defenders in the paint.

If that ends up being the biggest problem has in a series vs. the Raptors, you're feeling good about Philadelphia's chances. 

You still worry about how he'll fare until you see what he'll look like over the course of a series. Toronto being able to pass him off between Siakam, Anunoby, Scottie Barnes, Precious Achiuwa, and Chris Boucher (among a couple of others) allows the Raptors to shut passing windows quickly and minimize damage without needing to work all that hard for it. Harden's ability to win one-on-one is critical for this entire playoff run, but especially in this series.

Switching success looms large for the Raptors because Harden has repeatedly shown, even without his in-prime burst, that he will dice you up if your approach to defending ball screens is sending two at the ballhandler. 1-4 screens involving Harden and Georges Niang have been fruitful for Philadelphia over the last month-and-a-half, but Philadelphia has also had success using smaller players as screeners for Harden, with Tyrese Maxey's development as a shooter giving him increased utility on offense. In some ways, using Maxey as a screener might be more beneficial than using the likes of Niang, Harris, or even Embiid at times, due to the fact that could be putting a smaller player with less sharpness as a show-and-recover player in a spot where they're not all that comfortable.

Will Nurse actually be willing to let Harden attack, for example, someone like Malachi Flynn on a switch? Even with his shooting struggles and issues with burst lately, it takes a long time for people to let go of how they think a declining star should be defended. My expectation is the Raptors will try different looks, feeling things out early but knowing they'll use their switchability as a weapon. Really, the only question is how much they'll lean on it. And it's not just Harden who will feel that pain.

Joel Embiid getting past the nail

Philadelphia's problems against a switch-heavy defense don't necessarily end with Harden. The Raptors, in a different way, are uniquely equipped to bother Embiid at some of his favorite spots on the floor. The question is whether Embiid's leaps forward as a thinker and player will allow him to avoid the traps they'll set for him.

Standout issue No. 1: Toronto is a lot tougher for Embiid to play against from the nail. That is a money spot for Embiid, an area of significant development over these last two seasons where he has been able to show off his ever-expanding arsenal of tricks. Improvements to his handle, his soft shooting touch, and floor vision have shown up around the free-throw line for two straight years, and operating out of "Delay" was one of the wrinkles Doc Rivers introduced that helped Embiid make the leap to superstardom.

If the Raptors switch the opening action in a pick-and-roll attempt, their holy grail is getting to Embiid to sit right in that spot. Unlike other teams, who are hard-pressed to dig down on Embiid and recover, Toronto's personnel allows them to win on all fronts with Embiid in the middle of the floor. Most of their off-ball players in that scenario can dig down on Embiid without needing to stray as far as guard-sized players would, and ifthe Raptors get put in rotation by a good Embiid pass, their parts being interchangeable makes it harder to beat them in a scramble drill than a lot of other teams.

Another thing to keep in mind? Shooting over a smaller guy is obviously pretty easy for Embiid from that area, but bigs (even Embiid) can definitely get tricked into thinking a backdown is more advantageous than it is in reality. Smaller players are going to get the benefit of the doubt from the officials in a big way in that spot, neutralizing some of Embiid's advantages. 

That in mind, this series will test Embiid's willingness to post, re-post and seal Toronto's gang of small but sturdy defenders to catch passes closer to the basket. Taking advantage of that requires quicker, more purposeful offense from the whole group, swinging the ball around for better angles while Embiid works to find the opening. He is more than capable of putting up big numbers even in suboptimal circumstances against this team. 

Tyrese Maxey vs. a long Raptors lineup

This doesn't warrant much of a deep dive. I don't fear Maxey having to attack just about anybody, but the Raptors will be the first team to stress test how well he can hold up defensively playing a major role in the playoffs. There aren't great options here. The Sixers will likely want him to chase Van Vleet over screens (even with the second-half slump) and avoid having Maxey switch unless it's their final and only option. But to avoid switching, you have to rely on Maxey's ability to navigate screens and shed contact, both of which have been issues for him throughout the season. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Doc Rivers vs. the Paul Reed victory tour

Just kidding. I am interested to see if he sticks with his claim of going to Reed against small lineups and DeAndre Jordan against bigger fives, though. If so, this is a Reed series all the way through.

X-Factor: Matisse Thybulle

Could it have been anyone else? The Sixers being down a rotation player, a regular starter even, is a pretty giant story even if you have no interest in discussing the vaccine (which is a category I would include myself in at this point). In their opening series of the playoffs, Philadelphia knows it will be down a man despite him being perfectly healthy and available for home games. It's a unique situation.

And Thybulle is a unique component within the Sixers on top of that. You could argue he's their only real athlete on the wing, depending on how you classify Tobias Harris, and losing him creates an even bigger advantage for Toronto in the length and athleticism departments. It's easy enough for their perimeter guys to get going when Thybulle can hope to take one of them out of rhythm, but now the Sixers have to rely on a collection of shaky or outright bad defenders and rebounders to keep the Raptors at bay. Not having Thybulle could absolutely be a decisive factor in the series, one that he and his teammates look back on with regret when it's all said and done.

On the other hand, you could make the case that this will open things up for the Sixers and allow them to be the best versions of themselves on offense. With their roster construction and Nurse at the controls, the Raptors are uniquely equipped to put pressure on Philly in the middle of the floor by punishing them for playing any non-shooters. And Thybulle is the worst, most easily ignored shooter they have who will play regular minutes for them in the playoffs. All season, opposing teams have dared him to shoot — roughly 39 percent of his total shot attempts this year have come on shots classified as "wide-open" in the NBA's tracking database, and he has made just 28.4 percent of those looks. Throughout the season, this is a problem Rivers has had to work around in difficult moments, benching Thybulle in second halves when it became clear his presence was pulling down the offense.

Putting Danny Green in that spot is not without a downside. Even if Green's more reliable corner shooting is a boon for the offense, age and injuries have slowed him down this season, with Green no longer equipped to stand toe-to-toe with an opponent's best perimeter player. Thybulle missing games forces everyone in the lineup to move up one spot in the defensive priority list, and by extension, that puts a lot more pressure on Joel Embiid to play hero on the back end. With the sizable offensive burden Embiid will carry, taxing him even further on defense is regrettable.

Whether you're a Thybulle believer or not, the Sixers will be down an important option in road games where flexibility is key. It puts pressure on him to have an outsized impact in the games where he's available, and that might be an even scarier proposition.

Prediction

In terms of raw probability, I think this is something like a 60/40 series in favor of the Sixers. A lot of that stems from a foundational belief that elite players decide playoff series above all else, and the Sixers have the best man walking in this matchup. If Harden is at least good, not even necessarily great, my estimate is that should be enough to put Philly over the top.

I also wonder how reliable anything from the season series is as a predictive measure. Raptors backers can rightfully point out the number of absences they had in wins over the Sixers, though I am unconvinced certain trends will hold from the four games they played this season. Toronto's offensive output against Philly has far exceeded their season averages in some important areas — they were a bottom-five team in pick-and-rolls this year and far exceeded that against the Sixers in the regular season, for example. Maybe Van Vleet gets healthy enough that he can recreate his early season success against Philly by exploiting Maxey and the other weak links. In a run-of-the-mill iteration of this series, though, Toronto is going to have to piece together a legitimate playoff offense in a fairly unorthodox fashion through transition play, second-chance points, and areas of relative inefficiency like the post. Their size and athleticism advantages will help them in all three of those areas, the question being exactly how much.

I'm not saying this to be funny after the recent press conference fiasco — the backup center minutes have the potential to be enormous in this series. One of Toronto's greatest areas of strength comes in the minutes at the end of the first and third quarters into the early second and fourth quarters. The Raptors are a relatively thin team, dead last in the NBA in bench scoring, but they have functional depth that allows them to play seamlessly for most of 48 minutes. They mash teams in the exact minutes where Embiid tends to get his rest, using two and often three starters alongside the likes of Chris Boucher and Precious Achiuwa. If Embiid is able to beat up on Toronto's most played starting group of Van Vleet/Trent Jr./Anunoby/Siakam/Barnes, and he should be able to, Nick Nurse needing to bump Achiuwa up to the starting group might compromise one of Toronto's big advantages. Then again, he has proven willing to play guys for a billion minutes per game, so maybe it doesn't matter.

The season series and recent matchups have spooked a lot of people in Philadelphia ahead of this matchup. I think that is justifiable fear, but also think it has obscured the fact that the Sixers are probably just a better team. Toronto's path to victory essentially relies on their starters outplaying Philadelphia's starters (who have been formidable) and overcoming a lackluster halfcourt offense via means that may not be sustainable in the playoffs. If the Sixers can simply eat into Toronto's offensive rebounding machine and maintain their status as the superior offensive team in the slower, halfcourt-oriented style of the playoffs, they will win. 

There's almost no outcome that would shock me other than a sweep by either team. The Raptors could win a closeout Game 7 in Philly and it wouldn't shock me at all (in fact, I would be terrified to pick the Sixers in a do-or-die game with all the pressure on them). But I am placing my chips with the MVP candidate.

Sixers in six games.

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