Boston Celtics News: Toronto Raptors series makes history

Despite the fact that they have been Atlantic Division rivals for 25 years now, 2020 marks the first time the Boston Celtics and Toronto Raptors will square off in the postseason.

It’s an understatement to say that 2020 has been the year of unpredictability; global pandemic, wildfires, murder hornets, etc. That said, in regard to the postseason for the Boston Celtics, so far things have gone according to plan.

Essentially since March, we had been mentally preparing for a first-round matchup between the Cs and the Philadelphia 76ers. We got it.

Once the series was officially set, many of the major sports-media publications expected Boston to breeze through round-one en route to their fourth consecutive second-round appearance. We got it.

Being that the Raptors were slotted into the Eastern Conference’s second-seed for virtually the entire season, it was also widely expected that they would wind up being Beantown’s second-round opponent. As of both team’s series-sweeping victories yesterday, we got this one too.

With this impending matchup, history has been made, as never before have these teams squared off in the postseason.

Throughout the 2019-20 campaign, the Boston Celtics and Toronto Raptors met four times, and Boston managed to come away from their regular-season series as winners (3-1 record), with their last outing ending in a 22-point margin of victory.

The two franchises have played a total of 97 games against one another, with the Celtics leading their head-to-head battle by a record of 57-40.

While the Raptors have recent success on their side (2019 World Champions) Boston finds themselves rostering one of the best cores in this year’s postseason, as they were the only team to have five players listed on ESPN’s top-50 talents in the Disney bubble.

And, yes, even though Gordon Hayward is expected to remain out as he recovers from a grade-3 ankle sprain, they still were only one of a handful of teams to have four players make the cut.

In regard to the Houdini’s feelings heading into this historic series, excitement doesn’t even begin to describe things.

Game-one is scheduled to tip this Thursday at 6:30 PM (ET).

As always, go Celtics!