We The North is ready for Toronto Raptors playoff basketball. After cruising through the majority of the regular season, the Raps open as huge -2500 favourites to win their opening round matchup with the Orlando Magic. The two teams split their four meetings, though it should be noted that the Raps were without point guard Kyle Lowry for one of those tilts and Kawhi Leonard for another.

NBA Playoffs Point Spread and Betting Analysis

Toronto Raptors supporters hope the post-season brings an added intensity and more of a killer instinct to this team. With so much hype surrounding this team from Day 1, oddsmakers had no choice but to hand them fat point spreads just about every time they took the court. Toronto ended up 58-24 straight up, but just 38-44 against the spread (ATS).

Orlando tied with three other clubs for the third-best ATS record in the league at 45-36-1 and have covered the number in four straight. The Magic are an excellent defensive club, but finished the regular season by playing over the total in each of their last seven contests.

Orlando Magic

The Magic head into the playoffs on a major roll. They won 11 of their last 13 games and aren’t going to make life easy for the Raps. Orlando owned the fifth-best defence in the Association, giving up just 106.6 points per game, and held Toronto under 100 points in three of their four meetings. The Magic need to play tight defence in this series and force turnovers because they just don’t have the scoring options that Toronto has. Nikola Vucevic will be key at both ends of the floor. The seven-foot centre is the team’s top scorer and rebounder and lit up the Raps for 30 points and 20 rebounds back in December.

Toronto Raptors

Now we get to see if all of the Raptors’ moves will pay off. Kawhi Leonard, Marc Gasol, and Danny Green give this squad more depth than it has ever had. Toronto held Leonard to 60 games so that he’d be fresh for the playoffs, which could turn out to be a tremendous decision if he consistently takes over games like he can. Gasol and Green have made a strong defence even better while stretching the floor at the other end – Green shot 45.5 percent from downtown and Gasol hit 44.2 precent of his trey attempts.

With those three additions, combined with Lowry, Serge Ibaka, a healthy Fred VanVleet, and a star in the making in Pascal Siakam the Raptors should be too much for the Magic to handle as long as they play within their system. This first game might be tricky though with a hot Magic team coming in looking to spoil the party in Toronto.

MAGIC

Away

109

RAPTORS

Home

115

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