Boston Celtics: Analyzing the C’s play against other top title contenders

Title Contender No. 4) Toronto Raptors

Season Series: Celtics lead 2-1

Core-Five Per Game Averages:

• Kemba Walker — 24.7 points, 2.7 assists, 3.0 rebounds, 44 FG%, 35 3FG%
• Jayson Tatum — 16 points, 4.7 assists, 7.0 rebounds, 34 FG%, 42 3FG%
• Jaylen Brown — 24.0 points, 3.0 assists, 6.7 rebounds, 58 FG%, 42 3FG%
• Gordon Hayward — 14.0 points, 3.7 assists, 6.3 rebounds, 41 FG%, 40 3FG%
• Marcus Smart — 8.5 points, 2.5 assists, 2.0 rebounds, 30 FG%, 25 3FG%

First up on the docket, we talk about how the Boston Celtics have faired against the defending champion Toronto Raptors. After losing their “blink and you’ll miss it” franchise player Kawhi Leonard this past offseason, many predicted a lackluster followup campaign for Canada’s favorite ball club, some going as far as saying they could miss the postseason entirely.

Fast forward nine months and you’ll see that the Raps find themselves boasting a record on pace with their previous season and, heading into the Disney bubble, are viewed by ESPN’s BPI as one of the five favorites to take home the Larry O’Brien trophy in 2020.

Rostering the likes of two All-Stars in Kyle Lowry & Pascal Siakam, the formidable duo of Serge Ibaka & Marc Gasol down low, and a bench rotation consisting of Fred VanVleet, Norman Powell, and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson — among others — Toronto is an incredibly deep squad and, frankly, has been the only one of this bunch that has beaten the Celtics by double-digits — lost 113-97 on December 28th.

A big reason for this large margin of victory was due to the porous performances by both Gordon Hayward (13 points on 3-13 shooting from the field) and Jayson Tatum (12 points on 3-7 shooting from the field and an abysmal six turnovers).

Their other two outings that came on October 25th and December 25th, however, saw the shamrocks best the Raptors by a margin of six (112-106) and 16 (102-118), respectively.

To sum things up, though Toronto managed to give the Boston Celtics their biggest loss from any of the other teams found in this tier of ESPN’s projections, when fully locked in the Cs have managed to play exceptionally well against the Raptors and, in turn, lead this season series two games to one with one final matchup remaining on the schedule (August 7th).