TOR has blown a lead in all 3 L's so far:
New Orleans Pelicans rallied from an 11-point deficit and beat the relocated Toronto
DeMar DeRozan had 27 points and the San Antonio Spurs rallied in the final minute to beat the Toronto Raptors 119-114 on Saturday night.
Embiid shakes off injury, rallies 76ers past winless Raptors
Not sure what that's all about since we're talking a vet team with experience together. Maybe conditioning, maybe bad luck. Raps don't really have a 1A go-to guy when they need a bucket. Siakim? FVV? Lowry?
Siakim and FVV are shooting under 40% FG.
G1 v. NOPe: tied game with 1:15 left in 3Q; TOR went 3-12 in the 4Q
G2: Tight game the whole way; TOR with a 4 PT lead with 2:10 left
G3: TOR didn't score last 5:10 of 3Q, losing a 13 Pt lead; Siakim fouled out; PHI shot 19 more FT's; TOR 37 Pt 2nd half
Aside from Boucher, their bench has been poor, and appears thin.
Might be why they faded late 3Q in 2 of 3 so far.
So Knick depth/bench could be key.
Though Knix have 6 (bench) guys out.
We'll see what Tom Thumb's rotations/minutes turn out to be. I think so far he's trying to see what works. Plus there's been different guys out every game so far.
Every year TOR has moved one of their once loaded bench into the starting lineup: Siakim --> FVV --> Anunoby. But never restocked.
So it's Boucher and Normative Powell. Alex Len, Stan John and Matt Thomas.
Good chance for Len and StanJohn to show they can play. Two guys I was big on their rook/soph years.
Boucher has played well.