This is the Raptors’ first playoff run with a core of Scottie Barnes, Brandon Ingram, RJ Barrett, and Immanuel Quickley. The latter may be sidelined, but the Raptors still learned important lessons about his impact, especially early in the series.
Only very few pieces of the Raptors’ roster are locked in to be in Toronto for a very long time. His playoff run has only amplified Barnes’s standing as the face of the franchise, and Collin Murray-Boyles has established himself as perhaps the second-most important long-term piece next to Barnes. His defense, inside scoring, and physicality have been outstanding in the playoffs, especially for a rookie.
Other than that, there are still a lot of questions around the Raptors’ roster. Has RJ Barrett done enough to secure his long-term future in Toronto? Was this playoff run all the Raptors needed to see to give up on the Brandon Ingram experiment? Does Ja’Kobe Walter’s bad shooting in the playoffs alter his standing with the team? Is there a team willing to take on Jakob Poeltl’s massive contract?
The outcome of their first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers will answer a lot of those questions and dictate what the Raptors will do in the offseason. It could also completely alter their opponent’s future, though, as Zach Lowe hinted at on the latest episode of The Zach Lowe Show.
“If Cleveland loses to the Raptors in the first round, anything to me is on the table, literally anything,” Lowe said. “It would be an intolerable result.”
If the Raptors manage to pull off the upset, the Cavs may be forced to make some tough decisions about the construction of their roster in the offseason.
Losing this series would be much worse for the Cavs than for the Raptors
If the Raptors lose this series, it’s easy to say that at least they put up a fight and gained some valuable experience, and that they defied expectations by being a five-seed in the first place. It would be disappointing, but not earth-shattering. It wouldn’t even be very unexpected.
If the Cavs lose, it will unearth some ugly questions about whether Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen are a core that can deliver playoff success or if it’s time to make some franchise-altering moves.
Since Mitchell arrived in Cleveland, he, Mobley, Allen, and Darius Garland have lost in the first round once and then the semifinals twice. After those disappointments, the Cavs made the bold decision to move on from Garland and trade him in for a much older player. If the remaining core three and James Harden are eliminated in the first round by a Raptors team that’s largely new to the playoffs, in its first season with Ingram on the team, and playing without its starting point guard, it would pretty much be a catastrophe.
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