Are the Raptors cursed?
I don't believe in curses, but I couldn't help but ask myself the question on Thursday night. When they were able to pull off the Kawhi Leonard trade -- getting surplus value for a guy like DeMar DeRozan, whom I've always thought was good, but never considered to be a Tier 1 guy -- I thought it was a coup. Combine the move with LeBron having signed with the Lakers a few weeks earlier, and I suddenly found myself taking the Raptors as a serious contender to reach the NBA Finals, something I never did when DeRozan and Kyle Lowry led them.
Then they went 58-24 in the regular season, disposed of Orlando in the first round, and beat Philadelphia 108-95 in Game 1 of their series. I bought in. I thought Toronto's history of playoff futility could be coming to an end. But then Games 2 and 3 happened.
Philly embarrassed the Raptors Thursday night. Kawhi was Kawhi, doing everything he could, but everybody else on the Raptors not named Pascal Siakam was awful, and now Toronto is down 2-1 in the series and could be heading back to Toronto down 3-1.
If that happens, I don't see them coming back, and it will be yet another tremendous regular season followed by a postseason flameout.
So it's only natural to ask, are the Raptors cursed? I mean, that makes more sense than me just being wrong about them this year.
Here are my favorite picks for Friday. All odds via Westgate.
1. Milwaukee Bucks at Boston Celtics: Under 219
I took the Bucks to cover on Wednesday night because it felt as if the entire world had written them off in the series, yet the books didn't budge the line an inch between Games 1 and 2. And it was for a good reason! Milwaukee's still very good, and Boston is a team that's tougher to deal with in the postseason than the regular season.
Now the Celtics are two-point favorites heading into Friday night's tilt, and I don't like either side of this spread. I do like the Under though, as the offenses won out in the first two games, and playoff series typically have an ebb and flow. Plus, while it's not a hard and fast rule, the longer a series goes on, the fewer points that tend to be scored. I think Friday night's game could be somewhat ugly.
2. Denver Nuggets at Portland Trail Blazers: Under 214.5
A lot of the reasons I like the under in Milwaukee-Boston apply here as well. The first five meetings of the season between these two all went over, and then on Wednesday night they scored only 187 points, and I think Game 2 will more closely resemble the rest of this series than Game 1 did. Well, OK, they'll crack 200 this time around, but I don't expect it to go much higher than that.
3. Atlanta Braves at Miami Marlins: Marlins +148
There's so much value on the Marlins here at home. No, Miami's offense isn't scary. They have a team ISO of .106, which is the lowest in MLB. The next lowest is Cleveland at .128, so as you can see, there's a significant gap. Still, while Atlanta's offense is much better, Miami starter Jose Urena has had a bit of rough luck this season. His ERA is 0.80 points higher than his xFIP, which suggests some positive regression is headed his way. As does the fact he has a BABIP against of .345 and a high groundball rate on the contact he allows.
Atlanta's Kevin Gausman has better numbers overall, but he also allows more flyballs and has been about league average when it comes to hard contact against him. He also tends to lose his control from time to time and can give up free passes. So at +148, the Marlins only need to win this game roughly 40 percent of the time to make it worth the effort, and I think they do that at home.
