The Portland Trail Blazers make their only visit of the season to Canada to take on the Toronto Raptors. The Blazers snapped a four game losing streak with a 127-113 win at the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday. While Portland hasn’t been mathematically eliminated, they pretty much need to run the string and hope for some major luck elsewhere if they want to advance to the play-in.
The Toronto Raptors have already been eliminated, and a look at their injury report might give one the impression that they really don’t want to win this game. They’ve actually been pretty decent lately on paper, winning four of the last five. A look at their opponents for those wins though helps explain some of that success.
Some of the Portland Trail Blazers (33-43) vs a few of the Toronto Raptors (28-48) - Tue. Apr. 3 - 4:30pm Pacific
How to watch via antenna or cable: See your options on the Rip City Television Network
How to watch via streaming: BlazerVision in Oregon and Washington; League Pass everywhere else
Trail Blazers injuries: Deandre Ayton, Robert Williams III, Scoot Henderson (out), Anfernee Simons (questionable), Jerami Grant (doubtful)
Raptors injuries: Ulrich Chomche, Dick Gradey, Brandon Ingram, Jakob Poeltl, Immanuel Quickley (out), Scottie Barnes, Jared Rhoden (questionable)
SBNation Affiliate:Raptors HQ
Blazer’s Edge Reader Questions
From 7Up:
I’m trying to diversify my Blazer game beverages of choice. What’s the best beer brewed in Toronto?
You aren’t likely to find the best beer brewed in Toronto within 2,000 miles of Portland. If you are in Toronto though and like a classic Czech-style pilsner you won’t be disappointed with Steam Whistle. They do a good brewery tour too. If you want a solid Canadian beer that you can get at an Oregon Rite Aid, I’d say you can’t go wrong with a Labatt Blue. It’s what Budweiser should be but isn’t. They don’t actually have a brewery in Toronto though. Curiously they do have one in Rochester, New York, but now I’m getting off topic.
From oregoner:
Do the Blazers still think they have a chance to make the play-in? Or are the just competing hard for the sake of competing hard?
Sure, they absolutely have a chance. Just a very, very small one. I have no special insight to what is going through the minds of the players, coaches, and folks in the front office. As a very general rule though players want to play and win. Young players especially have no incentive to play poorly or sit out. One could imagine that a coach without a contract for next season just might want to get as many wins as possible too. Without many healthy veterans playing at a high level at the moment it’s hard for the Blazers to conveniently sit too many guys to out-tank the Raptors, even if they wanted too. I’m going to guess that the Blazers might nibble around the edges by continuing to sit a vet or too the rest of the season but for the most part the players will play hard and the chips will fall where they may.
From jalmond:
The NBA seems to be spending dramatically more energy on Europe than expanding within North America these days. I think Vancouver could absolutely be successful under the right circumstances, but with Las Vegas and Seattle clearly at the front of a line that’s currently getting less attention than a possible European league, it’s hard to imagine another Canadian team in the next decade.
As far as Toronto leaving for a US destination, we certainly live in unprecedented times that makes cross-border economics unpredictable. But most Americans don’t realize just how massive and important Toronto is. It’s the fourth largest city in North America behind Mexico City, New York City, and Los Angeles. It has a population 2.8 million people and a metropolitan area population of over 7 million. It’s also the de facto NBA team for Canadian basketball fans from (Canadian) coast to coast. It seems next to impossible that the NBA would willingly give up their foothold in the Great White North (Toronto is south of Portland and less white, but whatever).
What to Watch For
How far will Toronto go to pull off the loss? When these two teams played in Portland Toronto had the lead for much of the game until the fourth quarter. When it became apparent that Toronto just might win they pulled off one of the more blatant mid-game tank adjustment we’ve seen, sending any Raptor who threatened competency to the bench. The Blazers completed the comeback and won 105-102. This time it seems that Toronto is taking care of business early when you glance at their ”injury” list, but if the Raptors keep this one close it might be amusing to see how they go to try to throw this one away.
What Others Are Saying
Michael Grange of Sportsnet looks at a question familiar to Blazers fans: Should the Raptors have been worse?
Have the Raptors erred by not keeping up in the league’s race to the bottom?
Not in my judgment. To be in the bottom four and have a 12.5 per cent chance at the first pick, Toronto would have had to be 10-26 over their past 36 games, and barring season-ending injuries to Scottie Barnes and Jakob Poeltl — the Raptors finished last season 2-19 when that duo was injured at the end of last season — I don’t know if that was possible given the weakness of their schedule. As well, it would have been a real challenge to develop positive habits in young players when any serious focus on winning has been shelved for the last half of the season.
Chelsea Leite of Raptors HQ writes approvingly of the Raptors decision to pick up head coach Darko Rajakovic’s option.
If anyone deserves the benefit of the doubt to continue to develop as a coach, it’s Darko. His two seasons have been turbulent when it comes to injuries, trades, rebuilding, etc. Next season is basically the first “real” season he will be judged when it comes to on court results. Plus, it would have been detrimental to the building this team is trying to do to fire Darko after this season, lose the locker room, and have to rebuild that next season while also trying to have a winning season. These players would run through a wall for Darko, and so you need to make sure they have their coach if you want them to start seeing results.
Eric Koreen of The Athletic (subscription required) made 15 predictions about the Raptors before the season started. How’d he do?
Before this Toronto Raptors season began, I paraphrased Olivia Rodrigo in acknowledgement that making predictions was a bad idea. This had been proven a year earlier, when my 15 increasingly bold predictions resulted in a 4-7-3-1 record (correct, incorrect, spiritually correct but factually incorrect, unknowable Drake predictions). Still, I took the leap this year.
Well, with seven games left, I’m ready to rule on all of these predictions. My final record: 2-10-2-1. I was basically the Charlotte Hornets of predictions.