Toronto Raptors blame game: Who is at fault for 3-0 hole to 76ers?

1. Nick Nurse

On one hand, it’s easy to absolve Nurse of blame considering that one of his key starters in Barnes, veteran glue guy off the bench in Thad Young, and premier sniper Gary Trent Jr. have all been less than 100%. However, the master schemer’s inability to make adjustments should be questioned.

Why was the second-half offense nothing but isolations and pull-up threes? How is it that Doc Rivers devised a plan to easily circumvent Toronto’s much-hyped perimeter defense in the first two games? Why is Khem Birch still seeing rotation time? Why was Trent playing in Game 2 when he didn’t look healthy enough to get out of bed?

Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse has underwhelmed.

Nurse has won a championship and been to the playoffs in every non-Tampa season. His status as a quality coach in this league is established. It’s still fair to question why a playoff choker like Rivers has been coaching circles around him in the postseason despite Nurse dominating this fight in the regular season.

This roster is not ideal to defend players like Embiid and Maxey given the lack of size to slow down the former and the average perimeter speed to corral the latter, but that doesn’t mean that Nurse needs to respond by keeping the defense as is while chucking up 3s blindly on offense. For as good a coach as he is, this series was a disappointment.