Odds stacked against Raptors as they prepare for first play-in tournament

The NBA’s play-in tournament started in 2020-21 as a way to incentivize parity in what has historically been the most predictable of the big four North American sports leagues. And it worked. Despite pushback from traditionalists like LeBron James, the 2022-23 season has had more parity than any in recent memory, with a growing middle class separated by just a few games and the final standings coming down to the very last day of the regular season.

But the play-in tournament is not a saviour. Just because it incentivizes parity and gives two more teams in each conference a shot at making the playoffs doesn’t mean it sets those teams up for success. After all, despite the middle class getting stronger, the league still runs through those at the top. And this year, it runs through the top of the Eastern Conference.

The ninth seeded Toronto Raptors are about to find that out, one way or another. After failing to secure a top-eight seed, the Raptors have put themselves in an almost impossible position, having to win two straight win-or-go-home games against the 10th seeded Chicago Bulls on Wednesday and then the loser of the Miami/Atlanta play-in game on Friday. And if they win both, they will play the No. 1 seeded Milwaukee Bucks in a best-of-seven series starting on Sunday.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Toronto Raptors as they approach their first ever play-in tournament.

Play-in for what?

When Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri asked “Play-In for what?” during the season from hell in Tampa, Florida, he was being rhetorical. But given the structure, schedule, and potential pay-off of the play-in tournament, Ujiri’s question is valid.

For the Raptors to escape the play-in tournament, they will have to win two elimination games, one on the road versus a better-rested team with a higher seed. And even if they get through the play-in tournament, the Raptors will have just one day off (to practice and travel) before playing Milwaukee, the best team in the NBA, who will have had six days of rest in between the end of the regular season and the start of the first round on Sunday, and 10 days for the starters, who sat the final two games of the regular season.

“I think it seems like the regular season,” Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said about the schedule of the play-in tournament. “Game, travel, game, travel, game, and then you get to stay put for a little while if you can make it that far.”

The structure and grueling schedule of the play-in tournament puts teams in an impossible situation, especially the 9th and 10th seeds. It’s no wonder that only one ninth seed has made it out of the play-in tournament, and the furthest a play-in tournament team has gone is six games into the first round, never winning a series. Plus, the last time a No. 8 seed — which Toronto would technically be if they come out of the tournament — has beaten a No. 1 seed in a playoff series is all the way back in 2012.

The Raptors are doing everything in their control to prepare for every possibility, with advanced scout teams already preparing for both the No. 7 seed Miami Heat and No. 8 seed Atlanta Hawks should they win their game against Chicago and play one of them. “There's a group of coaches working on Miami, there's a group of coaches working on Atlanta,” Nurse said. “They'll do a lot of the groundwork, legwork, prep work and then hand it back to one of our front of the bench guys.”

Meanwhile, the Bucks are doing the same thing with each of their potential opponents, which is why in a vacuum it's possible the Raptors could put up a fight against the Bucks. But given that the Bucks will be significantly better rested, more prepared, and have home-court advantage against Toronto in a potential first-round series, the hole the Raptors have dug for themselves is likely too big to climb out of.

Playoff rotation

The fact that the Raptors will have such a short period to rest in between games could also affect their rotation. Unlike a typical win-or-go-home Game 7, where a team can lean on their starters knowing that they will get several days of rest in between rounds, the Raptors might opt to play the long game in hopes of preserving their best players’ already tired legs for at least the length of the tournament. After all, what’s the point of winning the first game at the cost of not having the energy to win the second?

That is what Nurse and the coaching staff will be managing as they choose a rotation for the play-in, determining how many players see the floor and for how long.

The five starters are sure to get a lot of run, as that group has been one of the best five-man units in the league since acquiring Poeltl, outscoring teams by 9.1 points per 100 possessions. After that, it’s likely that Gary Trent Jr. and Chris Boucher see time off the bench, as those have been the Raptors sixth and seventh best players.

“I think we got to consider that — shortening it down a little bit,” Nurse said of the rotation. “But I think it’s always a little bit how the game is going will affect that quite a bit as well. You never quite know how it is going to go and we certainly would like… to play your best guys as much as they can handle really.”

The Raptors could stop at seven or they could go a bit deeper on their bench, picking between Precious Achiuwa and Christian Koloko at the backup center — an important piece to matchup against Chicago’s rebounding machine, Andre Drummond. Will Barton could also see the floor if the Raptors are in desperate need of shooting.

Home court

If you look at betting odds around the NBA, the home team is heavily favoured in every play-in game. And with good reason.

Each of these teams have had 82 games to show us who they are, and the razor-thin margins in the standings tell us that they are in the same tier. Sure, individual matchups and stylistic advantages matter a lot over the course of a seven-game playoff series, but not nearly as much in a one-off, where any player could decide the game by getting hot and scoring 35 points. That’s why taking the team with home-court advantage is always going to be the safe pick.

“It should be crazy, man. It should be a really fun atmosphere,” Fred VanVleet said about what he expects from the Scotiabank Arena crowd versus the Bulls, where the Raptors are 27-14 this season. “This type of time of the year and these types of circumstances I think brings the best out of our crowd. And having that home court advantage has been one of the more special places to play in the NBA over the last decade, especially around this time of year.

“It's just up to us to go out there and give them something to cheer about. And hopefully we can use that to our advantage.”

DeMar DeRozan is returning to Toronto after spending the first nine years of his career as a Raptor. He is very familiar with the Raptors’ home-court advantage, acknowledging that “the atmosphere is going to feel like it’s an Eastern Conference finals game in a play-in game. So it’s definitely going to be crazy. Driving to the arena, walking through the arena, you’re definitely going to feel it. That’s the beauty of that place, those fans. And any competitor would want to be a part of that.”

DeMar and the Bulls

Speaking of DeRozan, the Raptors icon will be returning to Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday evening hoping to put an end to the Raptors season.

Toronto has had the slight upper hand in their matchups this season, winning the season series 2-1. But these two teams are on eerily similar trajectories, especially since the All-Star break, with identical 12-9 records and similar struggles in close games. Stylistically, they both cause a lot of deflections and turnovers with their high-pressure defences while struggling to space out the floor on offence.

Expect Toronto to shade a lot of extra attention towards DeRozan and Zach Lavine, sending double-teams and traps at them in order to force the rest of the Bulls into making quick decisions and open shots. In fact, this game will likely come down to whether or not the Bulls’ role players make enough open threes.

“That’s Nick Nurse,” DeRozan said of the Raptors’ aggressive game plans against him. “I’m going to deal with it. I know how to deal with it now. But playing against Nick and playing against those guys, they try to do everything in their power to make sure I don’t beat them.”

Meanwhile, expect Poeltl to be a difference maker for the Raptors on offence, where he will have a lot of room to roll to the rim or make decisions in the short roll given the way the Bulls like to put two on the ball in the pick-and-roll. The Raptors love putting slower bigs like Nikola Vucevic in the pick-and-roll repeatedly, hammering the advantage. They should also have opportunities to take advantage of their overwhelming size in the post against mismatches and on the offensive boards.

“I think our coaching staff is one of the top in the league in terms of preparation and game planning and finding different things and having adjustments ready on the fly,” VanVleet said. “So you’ve gotta give them a ton of credit for that. It’s up to us to go out there and try to execute the best we can.”

“We enjoy trying to put game plans together as a staff and the challenge is… a little different now, right, because you gotta make sure your option A’s are ready to go and they’re the right ones and those kinds of things,” Nurse said about his gameplan.

“I guess we are where we are right now and what has happened doesn’t really matter much if we can win a couple,” Nurse said about the play-in games. But the truth is, where the Raptors are right now matters a whole lot. By failing to win key games down the stretch of the season and finishing ninth, the Raptors have put themselves in an impossible situation, and they would need to make history to salvage the season.