The Toronto Raptors fell short in their attempt at a historic NBA playoff comeback.
Chris Boucher had 25 points and 10 rebounds, while Pascal Siakam added 24 points, but a poor shooting night and a baffling defensive effort saw the Raptors fall 132-97 to the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 6 of their best-of-seven playoff series.
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Joel Embiid had 33 points and 10 rebounds for the Sixers, who won the series 4-2, and will face the Miami Heat in the second round.
Gary Trent Jr. finished with 19 points, while rookie Scottie Barnes had 18 points for the Raptors, who played without star guard Fred VanVleet.
The Raptors looked all but cooked after losing the first three games of the series, but won two elimination games as hope grew among fans for a historic series victory.
After a dominant 103-88 win on Monday, the Raptors were held to within seven points during the first half despite horrible shooting. But they never seemed in sync on either end of the court all night, and the Sixers blew the game wide open with a 30-9 run in the third quarter.
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The Sixers hit six three-pointers in the quarter to the groans of the 19,800 crowd at Scotiabank Arena, and a long bomb by Harden put Philadelphia up by 22 points with 3:52 left in the period. The visitors outscored Toronto 37-17 in the quarter, and led 99-78 heading into the fourth.
A Barnes jumper less than a minute into the quarter cut the deficit to 18, but Embiid almost single-handedly extinguished any hopes of an improbable comeback, scoring 10 points in less than four minutes. And when Tobias Harris dunked with 4:34 left, the basket put Philadelphia up by 27 points.
Embiid once again ran down the court with his arms outstretched like an airplane in celebration as he famously did in the 2019 Eastern Conference semifinals against Toronto. Boos rained down on the 7-foot center.
Harris’ three-pointer with 3:38 remaining pushed the Sixers’ lead to 32 points and sent numerous fans heading for the exits.
Siakam fouled out with 2:14 left in the game, and received a standing ovation as he left the game. The Scotiabank Arena crowd chanted “Go Raptors!” when Nurse replaced his starters at that point.
The Raptors made just 7 of 35 – 20 percent – from three-point range, and 39.3 percent from the field. Philadelphia made 40 percent from long distance and a whopping 58 percent from the field.
Numerous Toronto athletes were on hand to witness the loss, including Maple Leafs Auston Matthews, Morgan Rielly, Mitch Marner, Alexander Kerfoot and Wayne Simmonds, Toronto FC’s Ayo Akinola and Ifunanyachi Achara, and former Raptor Cory Joseph.
The Raptors sorely missed the steady hand of three-point specialist VanVleet, who sat out his second straight game with a left hip flexor strain. The Raptors struggled from long distance throughout the series. Nick Nurse kept saying they had to have a big three-point shooting game.
“They’re going to start coming in, I keep saying that,” Nurse said after Wednesday’s practice. “The next game will be as good a game as any for them to start going in.”
It wasn’t.
The Raptors’ loss ended a season that began with low expectations, but picked up momentum after the All-Star break, when the Raptors won 14 of their last 18 games.
With their win Monday in Philadelphia, the Raptors became the 14th team – and the first since Milwaukee in 2015 – to force a Game 6 after trailing 3-0. The Bucks went on to lose 6-2 to Chicago. In the 75-year history of the league, 146 teams have faced 3-0 deficits in seven-game series.
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The Raptors were looking to become the fourth NBA team to force a Game 7 after trailing 3-0. The Portland Trail Blazers, in 2003, were the most recent team to do so, against the Dallas Mavericks. The Denver Nuggets, in 1994, came from 3-0 down, as did the New York Knicks in the 1951 NBA Finals. All three, of course, lost Game 7.
The Raptors made seven of their first eight shots, then went more than five minutes without scoring a field goal, missing 10 consecutive shots. Harden, who had scored only 15 points in Game 5, scored 10 in Game 4, and the Sixers led by seven on a pair of occasions. Philadelphia led 34-29 at the start of the second.
A three-pointer by Boucher highlighted a 15-5 run at the start of the second quarter, in which the Raptors went up by five. Green hit four three-pointers and scored 12 points in the quarter as the Sixers struggled to recover, and led 62-61 at halftime.
The Raptors shot just 3 of 15 from long distance in the first half.
The Sixers were without Matisse Thybulle, who is unable to travel to Toronto because he is not fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
2022 The Canadian Press
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