PHILADELPHIA—In the matter of the Raptors versus the Sixers in the first round of the NBA playoffs, Toronto head coach Nick Nurse said from the get-go it was going to be a slugfest.
He probably wasn’t envisioning a Game 1 in which his team, caught off its guard and miles off its game, would get knocked into next week.
So therein lies the challenge as the Raptors pick their battered bodies off the canvas and head to Sunday practice to prepare for Monday’s Game 2. If everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth, as a heavyweight champion named Mike Tyson once observed, what’ll be Toronto’s counter to the Philadelphia haymaker that greeted them in Saturday night’s 131-111 blowout loss?