After being tabbed as an underdog and responding with a 21-point home win over the Toronto Raptors, the Philadelphia 76ers are in the driver seat of their second-round series going into Game 4. The Sixers’ duo of Joel Embiid and Jimmy Butler combined for 55 points in the Game 3 win while limiting the Raptors’ Kyle Lowry and Marc Gasol to only 14 points. The Sixers opened as home underdogs again for Game 4 but with the announcement of Raptors’ forward Pascal Siakam as doubtful, their odds have since shifted to them being 2-point favorites.
STANDOUT STATS
- The Raptors have not been shooting well from behind the arc in this series. In three games, the Raptors are 26 for 91 (28.5 percent) with Kyle Lowry being the biggest culprit with a 2 for 14 stat line from three-point range. The Sixers are ranked second in opponent three-point percentage in the playoffs (31 percent) and only allowed teams to shoot 34.9 percent from three in home games during the regular season.
- Although the Raptors were held below 100 points in the last two games, Kawhi Leonard has not been the reason for the Raptors’ woes. In three games of the series, Leonard is averaging 37.7 points per game and has shot 61 percent from the field and 41 percent from behind the arc. In three regular-season games vs the Sixers, Kawhi averaged 30.3 points per game while shooting 50 percent from behind the arc.
- Three-point shooting has not come easy for the Sixers in the postseason and they are only hitting 33.2 percent of their shots, which is second-last amongst all remaining playoff teams. That being said, they’ve slightly improved that mark in this series by hitting 31 of their 90 shots from behind the arc (34 percent) and shot a decent 43.5 percent from deep in Game 3.
- Joel Embiid came alive in Game 3 vs the Raptors and if his knee is feeling better, the Raptors could be in serious trouble. Marc Gasol was brought on to be able to defend bigtime centers like Embiid but he had a -26-point differential in Game 3 and the Spaniard has yet to crack double-figures in points in this series.
- The Raptors will be without Pascal Siakam for Game 4 and their scoring could see a massive dip with him out of the lineup. Siakam has averaged 22.9 points per game in the playoffs while shooting 52.4 percent from the field which means the periphery players like Gasol and Serge Ibaka will need to have huge games to keep pace with the Sixers’ starting five.
- Outside of Game 5 vs Magic for the Raptors, the UNDER has been profitable for their games in the playoffs. The UNDER has hit in 7 of their 8 playoff games (avg. combined score: 203.4) and none of their games have exceeded 215 pts.
My Best Bet for Raptors vs Sixers
Sixers -2
This might be an overreaction from Game 3 but the loss of Siakam means more than the Raptors are letting on. Siakam was instrumental for the Raptors’ defense and transition offense and the drop-off from him to Serge Ibaka is massive. Kawhi will still likely have a decent game but when the three-point shots aren’t falling, it magnifies the weaknesses of the Raptors and shows their lack of high-end talent compared to what the Sixers are putting on the floor. Anything is possible but taking the Sixers at such a minimal spread seems like the safest option at this stage of the playoffs.
