How the Raptors' speed overwhelmed 76ers

Ahead of a potential playoff matchup, the Toronto Raptors, down OG Anunoby and Fred VanVleet, beat the Philadelphia 76ers for the third time this season. Imman Adan and Giancarlo Navas discuss what stood out. Follow Yahoo Sports Canada for all your Raptors coverage.

Video Transcript

IMMAN ADAN: I mean, the Sixers hit absolutely every single 3, which is kind of-- OK, so let me pause and let me take a step back. So Fred VanVleet and OG Anunoby were missing in this game. So you thought the Raptors would not really be able to keep pace with the Sixers offense, at the very least-- foolish because the Raptors have the best 3-point shooter of all time, possibly, in Precious Achiuwa.

GIANCARLO NAVAS: Oh, of course, yeah. Naturally.

IMMAN ADAN: But that sort of-- it seemed like the Raptors were probably not going to be able to keep pace without OG and without Fred VanVleet there. And on the flip side, the Sixers did not have Matisse Thybulle, who is ineligible to play in Canada, which more than likely means he is unvaccinated.

GIANCARLO NAVAS: [? No ?] [? vaxx. ?]

IMMAN ADAN: Right.

GIANCARLO NAVAS: So Toronto's offense is kind of interesting. And so I have here, via Cleaning the Glass, in transition, they had a 128 offensive-- for the game, they had a 128 offensive rating. And in transition, it was enormous, right? Their transition stuff has been good all year. They were 1.37 points per possession-- 137 offensive rating in transition.

And that's kind of what they do. With or without Fred, they have so many big wings that can rebound, and push, and are physical. And they have a lot of shooting on the floor now, and a lot of guys that anybody can pull up, anybody can dive to the rim.

And Philadelphia-- Imman, they're a slow team without athletes.

IMMAN ADAN: That's my thing. The Raptors are an excellent team in transition, you just mentioned it. They're an excellent transition offense. And the Sixers are a slow, older team. They are one of the worst defenses in transition in this league. And you're also removing a guy like Matisse Thybulle, which like I said, I didn't really know how the Raptors offense would truly thrive now.

In the games that the Raptors won, a large part of that was the transition offense, and being able to get stops and run the other way. But tonight-- I don't even know where I was going to go with this. Because I just don't want to lose the thought here-- my brain is scrambled. How does William Lou do these postgame? How do you guys do these postgame?

GIANCARLO NAVAS: Barely.

IMMAN ADAN: So my thought-- yeah, I feel like I need drinks here too, like the postgame over at [INAUDIBLE]. But my thought, really-- it's Ramadan. I can't believe I said that.

GIANCARLO NAVAS: No one heard that.

IMMAN ADAN: My thought keeps going back to-- so one of my kind of ongoing things is that for as great as the Raptors are in transition, Precious Achiuwa, I feel like is an automatic turnover in transition. That's kind of been what he is. Like, he just gets ahead of himself. I don't know if he's so excited or what it is, but it's almost always a turnover.

But tonight, he had a pull up 3 in transition, which I just don't want to lose. I don't want to move past this game because we have so much to talk about--

GIANCARLO NAVAS: Silky smooth.

IMMAN ADAN: --and not mention.

GIANCARLO NAVAS: I saw it, yeah. No, and he showed flashes of that in Miami. Because he'll come up the floor and-- like, mid-transition. And then he'll do a little between-the-legs pull up. And you're like, that looked good. That looks-- that's legit. That's not a fluke.

That's something that this dude is doing to people in practice. And he just doesn't have-- I guess it's different against NBA players and NBA speed. But he has the touch. He has the shot.

And kind of like your point about the transition, I think skilled big men in general, when they-- young, skilled big men want to do so much in transition. They're like, I could pass, I could shoot, I could run the floor. And like, four of five of these things, I shouldn't be doing, but I can do it.

And I think young guys like that-- Bam used to do it, too. He would just get caught up in the moment.

IMMAN ADAN: Oh, 100%. I think that's entirely what it is. But we're seeing him pick his spots. I mean, that was not something that I was totally prepared for. I've been on my Precious Achiuwa is a great 3-point shooter--

GIANCARLO NAVAS: We've noticed.

IMMAN ADAN: I love Precious Achiuwa. But he can do everything, and sometimes he gets to trying to do everything at one time. And it doesn't work.

But the Sixers are a particularly bad matchup for the Raptors. And I think we see why, forgetting the fact that Matisse Thybulle, who is their best perimeter defender, is going to be out. And we saw what Pascal Siakam was able to do tonight to just not have anybody there.

Gary Trent Jr. also, who Matisse would probably see most of his time on, was just lighting up the Sixers. Like, he finished with 30 points. And I didn't even-- like, everything was money from him. But it didn't feel like he was dominating the game. He just kind of fell into it, it felt like, just because--

GIANCARLO NAVAS: I have a question for you. Why do you think Philadelphia is a bad matchup for them? Because I actually like that matchup for Toronto a lot.

IMMAN ADAN: Oh, no, no, it's a bad matchup for Philadelphia.

GIANCARLO NAVAS: Oh, OK, OK, OK, good. Because I was like, whoa, why, Imman, what are we talking--

IMMAN ADAN: You know what? Initially, to start the year, if you gave me the Philadelphia 76ers, I would have been like, the Raptors just don't have a big. Like, they can't really guard a guy like Joel Embiid. But they've really shown with Nick Nurse's schemes-- and there was a tweet that came out today, I wish I could pull it up here.

But what the Raptors do to just prevent Joel from even getting the ball-- like, it's insane how low his usage rate is against a team like the Raptors. And you know what? We're going to see nights where-- especially without Matisse Thybulle, where you're going to get other guys that just go off. Part of having a guy like Matisse play for the Sixers means you have a guy that you can help off of on the defensive end because he's not really a threat.

And we saw that they can't really do that against Danny Green, who hit six 3's tonight. They can't really do that against-- obviously, you don't want to do that against Tyrese Maxey. You don't really want to do that against Tobias Harris as well. So that poses a bit of a problem.

But I'm not even worried for it at all because the Raptors get most of their offense in transition. The Sixers are just such a slow team to get back. And if you don't have Matisse for most of your games, I just don't know how you're going to stop the Raptors.

GIANCARLO NAVAS: And they force a ton of turnovers. And Embiid had five tonight, which I think that was the script on him last year. It's like, all right, you front, swarm, recover, force him to be a passer, turnover.

A lot of teams haven't been-- Miami did it a lot, and they were unsuccessful this year. And Toronto, they have so much more length. Those passing lanes are hell with all-- there's just a lot of arms.

And not that-- I'd never say that they're better without Freddy because Freddy is a [? drop ?] killer, and we know how much I love Freddy. But with Freddy off, you have a little bit more size. You have a little bit more length. You have a little bit more arm.

And some of those passes get real tricky when that help-- you know, it's one thing when the help is Fred, another thing when the help is Scottie or Gary Trent or whatever. And that gets them in transition. That juices their offense. And that gets them into what they want to do.

IMMAN ADAN: Speaking of the length, I just want to pull this up. Because I looked at the starting lineup, and I was just like, what are the Raptors doing? They started Pascal Siakam, Gary Trent Jr., Khem Birch, Scottie Barnes at the one, and Precious Achiuwa there.

GIANCARLO NAVAS: Nicholas, Nicholas-- Heat legend Khem Birch, by the way.

IMMAN ADAN: Oh, so many Heat legends on the Raptors--

GIANCARLO NAVAS: Heat legend Khem Birch to you, by the way. Three Heat legends on your team this year. That's a lot of [? culture. ?]

IMMAN ADAN: [LAUGHS] I'll take it. I'll take it. So yeah, so I'm really excited for the potential of a four-five matchup with the Sixers and the Raptors, regardless of whether Matisse Thybulle can play or not. I just think it's going to be a lot of fun.