The Philadelphia 76ers and the Toronto Raptors have some history in the playoffs. And they will add another chapter to their postseason rivalry as they go up against each other in the first round of the 2022 NBA Playoffs. Game 1 is scheduled to kick off on Saturday. Which team races to a 1-0 series lead? Check out our preview below of Game 1 of Sixers-Raptors playoffs series.
The Raptors lost to the New York Knicks on the road in their last game, but that shouldn’t diminish Toronto’s impressive stretch to close out the regular season. Toronto won eight of 10 games before packing their bags for the playoffs, a much-needed momentum ahead of a best-of-seven series against the Sixers. But even without that run, the Raps can still believe in their abilities to turn away Philly in the series. For one, they went 3-1 straight up in the regular season against the Sixers. That includes two games after the trade deadline, which means the Raps defeated the Sixers twice with the latter playing with James Harden. Toronto doesn’t have one man who can stop Joel Embiid, but their aggressiveness on the glass, particularly on the offensive end, could take away much from his opportunities to score from the field. Toronto was second in the regular season in offensive rebound rate (28.4%) while the Sixers ranked 30th in field-goal attempts per contest (84.5).
The Raptors are 4-0 against the spread in their last four games against Philly.
There is a ton of promise for the Sixers to go deep in the playoffs. Just having Joel Embiid and James Harden on the same team already makes Philly a legitimate title contender. Embiid, who just clinched the 2021-22 NBA season’s scoring title with 30.6 points per game average is also grabbing 11.7 rebounds per contest. He will be a matchup problem for the Raptors, who will be forced to throw multiple bodies at the Cameroonian just to slow him down. The Raps certainly tried that in the regular season but Embiid still came away with 29.0 points with 10.3 free throws made on 12.3 attempts from the foul line. It’s also worth noting that the Sixers had a better effective field goal percentage in every meeting with Toronto this season.
The Over is 5-0 in the Sixers’ last five games at home.
