The Toronto Raptors start off their title defense with a first-round series against the Brooklyn Nets. Despite being a severely undermanned team, the Nets have been one of the better teams in the bubble but it didn’t take long to see how far apart the defending champs and Brooklyn are, even in such a different environment.
Playing without Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving has (often) been the norm for Brooklyn. But heading into the bubble the Nets were without Taurean Prince and DeAndre Jordan—with both players testing positive for COVID-19—and Spencer Dinwiddie and Wilson Chandler (sitting out of bubble play), leaving interim coach Jacque Vaughn to know it would be an uphill battle against Nick Nurse and the Toronto Pistons.
Toronto blitzed Brooklyn right out of the gates to take a commanding 17-point lead into the second quarter. But refusing to go away, the Nets battled extremely hard in the middle periods and made Game 1 a bit closer than the final score indicates.
The Toronto Raptors got a legit challenge from the Nets and while my prediction for this series would still be Toronto in a sweep, Brooklyn showed that the Raptors will have to stay focused throughout this series to make it as short and sweet as possible.
It will be extremely tempting for Nick Nurse’s squad to look ahead to what could be an extremely exciting 2019 playoff rematch against the Philadelphia 76ers or a tough series against the new-look Boston Celtics, but the Nets proved that Caris LeVert and their group of overachieving role players will hang tough all series long. Here are our main takeaways from a nice series-opening win for Toronto.