Ahead of their game-one matchup against the Toronto Raptors, the Boston Celtics fan base should keep in mind 3 more key matchups.
Both the Boston Celtics and Toronto Raptors made their first-round matchups look fairly easy as we all awaited the inevitable second-round matchup. Brooklyn was forced to find players off the street and Philadelphia looked uninterested in playing basketball.
So much for “The Process”, it’s looking to me that they might need to blow the whole thing up. That starts with the dismissal of Brett Brown, which we saw almost immediately.
Regardless, Celts and Raps move on.
This is going to be one of two very interesting series on the east side of the bracket. I believe the winner of this one will represent the conference in the NBA Finals.
The Boston Celtics took the season series 3-1. Typically, I try to avoid thinking too much about the regular-season series because I know it doesn’t tell the whole story or can sometimes be skewed.
This is one of those situations.
The first meeting was the second game of the season in which the Raptors were still trying to shake the championship hangover. The next two, they were missing Pascal Siakam, Norman Powell, and Marc Gasol. And the final matchup, the Raptors had already locked up the two seed and had nothing to play for.
With that said, there are some things to take from those games and think about when predicting this series.
I see this being a back and forth second-round with tons of lead changes, huge runs, and some games that will come down to the wire. An absolute dog fight, if you will.
With that said, here are the three matchups I, specifically, am looking at ahead of this first-time playoff matchup for these squads.