2014-2018 Raptors most disappointing 4 year stretch in playoff history

[Raps in 4]

So explain how losing to the Cavs is the "2nd greatest playoff upset of all time" if the data shows this is the worst playoff team of all time?

By the numbers it was an upset. That doesn’t take away from the fact that we’ve underperformed in basically every playoff series we’ve been in the last 4 years.

Here's the only number that matters when analyzing that series: 23.

He plays for the Cavs. Therefore it was nowhere close to an upset which is why the majority of analysts were picking the Cavs to win.

It was statistically the second biggest upset in NBA history.

[Big Mac Biyombo]

By the numbers it was an upset. That doesn’t take away from the fact that we’ve underperformed in basically every playoff series we’ve been in the last 4 years.

Here's the only number that matters when analyzing that series: 23.

He plays for the Cavs. Therefore it was nowhere close to an upset which is why the majority of analysts were picking the Cavs to win.

It was statistically the second biggest upset in NBA history.

And again, those stats are irrelevant when we're talking about LeBron freaking James going up against the Toronto Raptors.

The only number that matters is 23. Everything else was irrelevant.

[Raps in 4]

Most of the teams listed in this chart lost to the greatest teams of all time

Milwuakee: Celtics with Bird, Hawks with Nique, Bad Boys Pistons
Portland: Lakers with Magic, Bad boys pistons, Jordan's bulls
Miami: Bulls w Jordan, and Knicks with Ewing
Denver: Lakers w Magic
Clevland: Bulls x2 Knicks with Ewing x2

And we lost to Lebron 3 times (more than any one of those teams had to face a single great team). More like makes us the most unlucky title contending team of all time.

Versus Cavs this years in playoffs:

Pacers: +6.3

Celtics: -0.9

Raptors: -15.1

[lebron stopper]

Here's the only number that matters when analyzing that series: 23.

He plays for the Cavs. Therefore it was nowhere close to an upset which is why the majority of analysts were picking the Cavs to win.

It was statistically the second biggest upset in NBA history.

And again, those stats are irrelevant when we're talking about LeBron freaking James going up against the Toronto Raptors.

The only number that matters is 23. Everything else was irrelevant.

[Raps in 4]

Here's the only number that matters when analyzing that series: 23.

He plays for the Cavs. Therefore it was nowhere close to an upset which is why the majority of analysts were picking the Cavs to win.

It was statistically the second biggest upset in NBA history.

And again, those stats are irrelevant when we're talking about LeBron freaking James going up against the Toronto Raptors.

The only number that matters is 23. Everything else was irrelevant.

Pacers were +6.3 against him this year in the playoffs. Celtics were -0.9. You can be competitive against Lebron James. There is no excuse for our poor performance.

[TheBoi10]

Casey and DeRozan are frauds

I want to throw up every time I read these lame comments.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

DeMar gets the oppurtunity to put up volume scoring stats in the regular season. He's inefficient offensively and plays terrible defense. Fraud in every way basketball wise.

Casey is a complete idiot. That got coach of the year consideration because he was forced by management to let Nurse do more. Every year he's given a game plan how to defend LBJ but somehow messes it up.

The team would be so much better without either of them.

[Raps in 4]

Casey and DeRozan are frauds

I want to throw up every time I read these lame comments.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

DeMar gets the oppurtunity to put up volume scoring stats in the regular season. He's inefficient offensively and plays terrible defense. Fraud in every way basketball wise.

Casey is a complete idiot. That got coach of the year consideration because he was forced by management to let Nurse do more. Every year he's given a game plan how to defend LBJ but somehow messes it up.

The team would be so much better without either of them.

Our defence was ranked 14th in the playoffs this year when we got eliminated. And that was supposed to be Casey's "area of expertise".

[Big Mac Biyombo]

It was statistically the second biggest upset in NBA history.

And again, those stats are irrelevant when we're talking about LeBron freaking James going up against the Toronto Raptors.

The only number that matters is 23. Everything else was irrelevant.

Pacers were +6.3 against him this year in the playoffs. Celtics were -0.9. You can be competitive against Lebron James. There is no excuse for our poor performance.

Who's making excuses? We flat out sucked. But that doesn't make it the second biggest upset in NBA history.

[Raps in 4]

And again, those stats are irrelevant when we're talking about LeBron freaking James going up against the Toronto Raptors.

The only number that matters is 23. Everything else was irrelevant.

Pacers were +6.3 against him this year in the playoffs. Celtics were -0.9. You can be competitive against Lebron James. There is no excuse for our poor performance.

Who's making excuses? We flat out sucked. But that doesn't make it the second biggest upset in NBA history.

Statistically, it sure does.

[StopitLeo]

The Raptors have the worst expected vs. actual point differential over a 4-year span in playoff history. It isn't even close (actual point differential is -60.5).



We even had a negative point differential in many of the series we won. We only had a positive point differential in 3/9 series.



https://nba.nbcsports.com/2018/06/12/raptors-playoff-problems-run-much-deeper-than-lebron-james/

Do people see now why some of us are calling for a rebuild? Do people get why we're the laughingstock of the NBA? The American media and players don't make fun of us because they hate us. They make fun of us because we're legitimately bad.

I forget who originally posted this in one of the Nurse threads. It got buried, so i thought I'd repost it for more visibility.

It boils down to the fact that we have played LeBron 3 times and that offense has been our biggest playoff issue prior to this season. Prior to this season our ORtg dropped significantly from the regular season to the playoffs (around 8-9 points). This year our ORtg finally held up from the regular season to the playoffs (something Nurse has pointed out).

If you look series-by-series, our DRtg in the playoffs has been good against every team except Cleveland. For whatever reason our defensive schemes are completely ineffective against LeBron (that's another discussion). Over the past 3 years our DRtg has been ~15, ~18, and ~14 points worse against Cleveland than the other teams we faced in the playoffs; in two of those years the Cavs had the best ORtg in the playoffs.

If you look at other teams in the past four years that faced the Cavs in the 2nd round or later (so you can make a series-by-series comparison) the same pattern exists:

- Atlanta's DRtg was ~27 and ~10 points worse against the Cavs than other teams they faced in the 2015 and 2016 playoffs.
- In 2016-2017, Boston's DRtg was ~21 points worse against the Cavs than against the Bulls and Wizards.

Having a negative net rating in a series you win just speaks to consistency. The truth is we have only had one winning series in the past 3 years with a negative net rating, not "many" as you suggest. Also, winning a series with a negative net rating is not a unique "problem" to Toronto. Just this year Boston had a negative net rating in 1/2 series they won. Cleveland had a negative net rating in 1/3 series they won.

The reality is that this team's ceiling has been the ECF but that was always assuming we didn't meet LeBron in an earlier round. Given that, should we be shocked that we lost to the Cavs? No. Would it be nice if the last two years we had been more competitive? Of course, especially when we see how Indiana and Boston went 7 games. Can we acknowledge, however, that in the 6 games Indiana and Boston won against Cleveland only 1 was actually competitive?

People point to Toronto being blown out by 18 and 35 as evidence of how bad the Raptors are. You can't do that without recognizing how bad the Cavs played in five of their losses to Indiana and Boston. Cleveland was blown out by 18 and 34 against Indiana and by 25, 13, and 13 against Boston.

[Raps in 4]

The Raptors have the worst expected vs. actual point differential over a 4-year span in playoff history. It isn't even close (actual point differential is -60.5).



We even had a negative point differential in many of the series we won. We only had a positive point differential in 3/9 series.



https://nba.nbcsports.com/2018/06/12/raptors-playoff-problems-run-much-deeper-than-lebron-james/

Do people see now why some of us are calling for a rebuild? Do people get why we're the laughingstock of the NBA? The American media and players don't make fun of us because they hate us. They make fun of us because we're legitimately bad.

I forget who originally posted this in one of the Nurse threads. It got buried, so i thought I'd repost it for more visibility.

It boils down to the fact that we have played LeBron 3 times and that offense has been our biggest playoff issue prior to this season. Prior to this season our ORtg dropped significantly from the regular season to the playoffs (around 8-9 points). This year our ORtg finally held up from the regular season to the playoffs (something Nurse has pointed out).

If you look series-by-series, our DRtg in the playoffs has been good against every team except Cleveland. For whatever reason our defensive schemes are completely ineffective against LeBron (that's another discussion). Over the past 3 years our DRtg has been ~15, ~18, and ~14 points worse against Cleveland than the other teams we faced in the playoffs; in two of those years the Cavs had the best ORtg in the playoffs.

If you look at other teams in the past four years that faced the Cavs in the 2nd round or later (so you can make a series-by-series comparison) the same pattern exists:

- Atlanta's DRtg was ~27 and ~10 points worse against the Cavs than other teams they faced in the 2015 and 2016 playoffs.
- In 2016-2017, Boston's DRtg was ~21 points worse against the Cavs than against the Bulls and Wizards.

Having a negative net rating in a series you win just speaks to consistency. The truth is we have only had one winning series in the past 3 years with a negative net rating, not "many" as you suggest. Also, winning a series with a negative net rating is not a unique "problem" to Toronto. Just this year Boston had a negative net rating in 1/2 series they won. Cleveland had a negative net rating in 1/3 series they won.

The reality is that this team's ceiling has been the ECF but that was always assuming we didn't meet LeBron in an earlier round. Given that, should we be shocked that we lost to the Cavs? No. Would it be nice if the last two years we had been more competitive? Of course, especially when we see how Indiana and Boston went 7 games. Can we acknowledge, however, that in the 6 games Indiana and Boston won against Cleveland only 1 was actually competitive?

People point to Toronto being blown out by 18 and 35 as evidence of how bad the Raptors are. You can't do that without recognizing how bad the Cavs played in five of their losses to Indiana and Boston. Cleveland was blown out by 18 and 34 against Indiana and by 25, 13, and 13 against Boston.

Our defensive schemes didn't fail against Lebron this year. They failed against his teammates.

And the Cavs didn't play bad against the Celtics and Pacers. They were contained by two competent teams.

[pingpongrac]

The Raptors have the worst expected vs. actual point differential over a 4-year span in playoff history. It isn't even close (actual point differential is -60.5).



We even had a negative point differential in many of the series we won. We only had a positive point differential in 3/9 series.



https://nba.nbcsports.com/2018/06/12/raptors-playoff-problems-run-much-deeper-than-lebron-james/

Do people see now why some of us are calling for a rebuild? Do people get why we're the laughingstock of the NBA? The American media and players don't make fun of us because they hate us. They make fun of us because we're legitimately bad.

I forget who originally posted this in one of the Nurse threads. It got buried, so i thought I'd repost it for more visibility.

1. We've only won one series in which we had a negative net rating ('16 vs IND). "Many" is a bit of an exaggeration.
2. Our net rating against Cleveland in 3 series is -48.2. In the other 6 series, our net rating is -12.3, which isn't great, but our record was 19-18 and we won 4 of those series. I don't think anyone seriously expected us to beat the Nets in our first go at the playoffs or the Cavs in '16 or '17. Losing to WAS in '15 was major a disappointment, as was losing to CLE in '18 - and going a combined 0-8 in those series is an embarrassment. I'm certainly not denying that.
3. This team has wildly exceeded expectations in 3 of the past 5 seasons. In 2013-'14, most experts had us pegged between 30-35 wins and winding up in the lottery; we won 48 and finished 3rd. In '14-'15, we were pegged around 50 wins and finishing top 4; we won 49 and finished 4th. In '15-'16, many thought we would falter more after being swept by the Wizards; we won 56 games and finished 2nd. Last year, we were expected to win ~50 games and finish with HCA again; we won 51 games and finished 3rd. This year, no one expected us to win 50+ games and predicted we may not even have HCA; we won 59 games and finished 1st.
4. We are 263-147 (.641 win%) during the regular season over the past five years. We are 111-104 (.516 win%) against +.500 teams and 152-43 (.779 win%) against -.500 teams. To say the least, we have taken care of bad teams and we've held our own against good/great teams. During the same span, we're just 21-30 (.412 win%) in the playoffs. However, as mentioned in #2, we're 2-12 against Cleveland and 19-18 against the rest of the East.

All of these things combined tell me two things: we've exceeded expectations in the season - which has magnified our playoff struggles - but Cleveland is the main problem.

[Skeezo]

3 of those 4 years included playing GOAT though.

See Cleveland from 92-96... I would argue that was against the GOAT... And even those Cavs were able to put up a better fight.

To all those who are still hanger-ons... It is not the fact that we lose in the playoffs, it is the way we lose and this statistic illustrates how futile our player's efforts have been... I can't go another year of guys telling me what they need to "understand" when it comes to playoffs and clearly they never do.

[slothrop8]

DeRozan plays more minutes in the playoffs than he does in the regular season - and he's absolutely abysmal in the playoffs. He's a 49.7% TS player on 30.1% USG with terrible, terrible defense playing 37.5 minutes a game. He's quite literally one of the worst, most detrimental to team success playoff performers in the history of professional basketball. Want to know why the Raptors wildly underperform in the playoffs - that's by far the biggest reason. Other culprits have contributed to our failures in different series in different years, but the overarching reason for the consistently poor playoff performances is absolutely DeRozan.

His ON/OFF split by playoff run:

2014 -3.5
2015 -10.3
2016 -7.2
2017 -17.9
2018 - 18.4

When the playoffs start, he's flat out one of the worst rotation players in the NBA. That's the reason.

[Big Mac Biyombo]

Pacers were +6.3 against him this year in the playoffs. Celtics were -0.9. You can be competitive against Lebron James. There is no excuse for our poor performance.

Who's making excuses? We flat out sucked. But that doesn't make it the second biggest upset in NBA history.

Statistically, it sure does.

You obviously don't know how to evaluate statistics contextually.

How is SRS the least bit relevant to our second round matchup against the best player in the league? How both teams fared against the other 28 teams during the regular season could not be more irrelevant.

How's this for stats:
LeBron James was 8-2 against us in the playoffs going into this year's series, including 6 straight wins.

LeBron James had been to the NBA finals for 7 straight years leading into this year's series.

The Toronto Raptors have nobody to guard LeBron James. We were relying on a 20 year old rookie, and a 23 year old sophomore who hasn't been playing basketball for as long as LeBron has been going to the finals.

Like I said the last time; take this "2nd biggest upset in NBA history" theory to the general board and see the laughs you get.

[cruwinas]

It's a nightmare that we will try to forget.

[ontnut]

Nothing we didn't know. We should've been the favourites in just about every matchup except for Cleveland the two times prior to this year. Winning in 6 or 7 against inferior teams and then getting wiped by ones who are (slightly) favoured is not a good track record.

But. It's still better than not making the playoffs 4 years straight, which is what it was for most of our history.

[Raps in 4]

Who's making excuses? We flat out sucked. But that doesn't make it the second biggest upset in NBA history.

Statistically, it sure does.

You obviously don't know how to evaluate statistics contextually.

How is SRS the least bit relevant to our second round matchup against the best player in the league? How both teams fared against the other 28 teams during the regular season could not be more irrelevant.

How's this for stats:
LeBron James was 8-2 against us in the playoffs going into this year's series, including 6 straight wins.

LeBron James had been to the NBA finals for 7 straight years leading into this year's series.

The Toronto Raptors have nobody to guard LeBron James. We were relying on a 20 year old rookie, and a 23 year old sophomore who hasn't been playing basketball for as long as LeBron has been going to the finals.

Like I said the last time; take this "2nd biggest upset in NBA history" theory to the general board and see the laughs you get.

We don't need someone to guard Lebron. We need to guard the players around him, which everyone but us managed to do in this year's playoffs.

[omar36]

DeRozan plays more minutes in the playoffs than he does in the regular season - and he's absolutely abysmal in the playoffs. He's a 49.7% TS player on 30.1% USG with terrible, terrible defense playing 37.5 minutes a game. He's quite literally one of the worst, most detrimental to team success playoff performers in the history of professional basketball. Want to know why the Raptors wildly underperform in the playoffs - that's by far the biggest reason. Other culprits have contributed to our failures in different series in different years, but the overarching reason for the consistently poor playoff performances is absolutely DeRozan.

His ON/OFF split by playoff run:

2014 -3.5
2015 -10.3
2016 -7.2
2017 -17.9
2018 - 18.4

When the playoffs start, he's flat out one of the worst rotation players in the NBA. That's the reason.

100%agreed.

hes the main problem for this team but his fanboys refuse to see this and blame everything on coaching. The guy is so easy to defend and as easy to exploit on defense. its cool, hes good in the regular season but so what? the guy brings nothing to the table when it matters most.

Why can't masai see this? is his friendship with demar blinding him this much

[BigShaq34]

such a trash disappointing team they really **** suck when it counts

utter softies losing to the same team again and again

couldn't even get 1 **** win smh