Who are the Toronto Raptors’ top 5 current rivals?
By Lee Tanner
The Boston Celtics
Raptors fans have always held a special dose of hatred in their hearts for the Celtics.
With the Celtics, you don’t have players who are looking to get revenge on the Raptors as they have a number of recently drafted players. Nevertheless, the Celtics and Raptors games always bring an edge of the seat type of gameplay that fans treasure.
During the 2018-19 season, we saw some amazing games between the two teams. The season series ended as a draw 2-2 with one of the Celtics wins ending in overtime.
Kyrie Irving left but their replacement in Kemba Walker is just as much of a threat on the offensive end. Walker hasn’t had the chance to play along with such a deep roster that has expectations to make a deep playoff push. So we can be sure that the 29-year-old point guard will be coming out to prove why he should be in the running as one of the best in the league.
There are also a number of young players on the Celtics that are poised to have a breakout season as well as a lot of potential in the rookies. The young core could be the X factor in how far they make it and how much of a threat they are in the East.
Adding in that they’re in the Atlantic division, and have consistently been a threat for the past few years, this year won’t be any different for the Toronto-Boston rivalry.
The season series could end in any way. Both teams are fairly evenly matched rosters. With both teams having quite a number of players that are question marks with how they’ll be able to perform within their respective teams and what their role will be.
Both Boston and Toronto will be gunning to land in the middle to an upper playoff seed. This means that Raptors fans can expect, once again, a must-watch season series for the upcoming year.
Luckily for NBA fans, the first time these two meet will be October 25, 2019, in Boston.