Three key takeaways from the Toronto Raptors’ painful loss against the Sixers

The Toronto Raptors remain winless, as they fall to 0-3 on the season

The woes of the season continue as the Toronto Raptors have yet to capture their first win of the 2020-2021 NBA campaign. In a game that the Raptors were in control of, for the most part, there were many key takeaways.

Here are three key takeaways from the Toronto Raptors’ loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

#1: Be ready at all times

A major trait that the Raptors carry themselves with is their ability to adapt and adjust to the situation at hand. Nick Nurse isn’t a complacent coach that is afraid of changing things up. Throughout his two years being the head coach of the Raptors, he has proved his ability to adjust with tactics such as the box-and-one.

Nurse along with the coaching staff understood that having matchups in their favor would be essential in Toronto’s chances of winning. Hence why Chris Boucher didn’t receive much playing time, despite coming off a career game against the San Antonio Spurs. In order to match up with the size of Joel Embiid, the Raptors utilized Aron Baynes and Alex Len much more throughout the course of the game.

Defense has surprisingly been the big issue for the Raptors thus far. Nurse elected to prioritize that on Tuesday night by playing Stanley Johnson major minutes. Although Johnson’s stats don’t scream anything special, as he tallied 7 points, 8 rebounds, 2 steals.

Johnson was able to move his feet extremely well, with sound closeouts and solid defense on Ben Simmons. Proving to be a great sign for Raptors faithful, as the depth and readiness of the bench will be a great weapon going forward with the season.

#2: OG delivers a huge performance

Selfishness isn’t always a bad thing. OG Anunoby finally had the performance that the Raptors knew he was capable of having. Anunoby had 20 points, 6 rebounds, and an impressive 5 steals in the win against Philadelphia. Displaying the glimpses of the player that he can be.

In the first two games, OG was hesitant and passed up on shots that he should’ve taken. He had 8 points against the Pelicans and 10 against the Spurs. It was evident that coming into Tuesday night’s game, it was a focal point for OG to be a part of the offense.

Nobody on the Raptors is asking OG to be the number one scoring option, however, for the Raptors to be successful, they need OG to be the third or fourth scoring option.

Anunoby was able to let the offense come to him.

His outstanding play on the offensive end started with a few catch and shoot opportunities, that later developed into Anunoby creating his own offense. Once Anunoby started to get things going, the outlook of the game drastically changed in the favor of Toronto.

OG also provided that stellar defense that he brings game in and game out, with those 5 steals. His play on both ends of the court were big contributors in why Toronto was able to be so competitive with Philadelphia

If Anunoby can consistently provide a spark on the offensive side of the floor, Toronto will be among the upper echelon of teams in the eastern conference.

#3: Another game, another drought

It’s become a habit for the Raptors to have a scoring drought at some point of the game, which isn’t a good thing in the slightest. The Sixers went on a 13-0 run in the third quarter, due to the Raptors being unable to make a field goal over the span of 5 minutes.

Toronto has yet to find a player who can take them out of those droughts. There’s no player on this Raptors team that has proven to be a go-to scorer. Last season the team relied heavily on Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka’s pick and pop as a means for offense. This season there has yet to be a source of offense that has been able to help the Raptors in their scoring slumps.

The one thing that each of the Raptors’ first three games have in common is that the team goes on a big scoring drought during the third quarter. Raptors need to do a much better job on offense coming out of halftime to secure wins.

Defense became a huge weak spot once again. Joel Embiid was getting any and every foul call that he desired, as the Raptors defense was unable to stay on their feet and kept swiping at the ball. Toronto as a team took 14 free throws, Embiid himself had 16 free throws alone. With a free throw disparity that large, a win is going to be nearly an impossible feat.

The season is still young and the Raptors have plenty of time to get things sorted. However, this is by far the worst start to the season that Toronto could’ve imagined. The Raptors will need to have amnesia, as they will have to focus their attention on their next game against the New York Knicks.