Half-court Issues Continue to Plague Raptors

If you're looking for optimism, you've come to the wrong place.

Down 2-0 in a best of seven series is a very daunting predicament for the Toronto Raptors. While they've done it before, clawing out of a 2-0 hole last year and there may be some reasons for optimism — which I touched on here — there are far more reasons to be pessimistic.

Only 7% of teams in NBA history have come back from a 2-0 series hole in a best-of-seven series and, for what it's worth, only four of 103 teams to fall behind 2-0 in the conference semifinals.

Making things worse for the Raptors is the way they've lost games to the Celtics.

Coming into the series if there was one area the Raptors were deficient, it was in their half-court offence. They ranked 16th in the NBA in half-court scoring during the regular season, but there was hope that part of those struggles had to do with injuries to every single starter at some point during the season.

Unfortunately for Toronto, those half-court offensive issues have persisted in the playoffs and especially against the Celtics.

In the past two games, the Raptors have scored 73.8 and 90.2 points per 100 possessions in the halfcourt, respectively, according to Cleaning the Glass. Those scoring numbers are well below the Raptors' season average of 94.5 points per 100 half-court possessions, which was already causing problems for Toronto. Add the fact that the Raptors were forced to play 84.4% of their possessions in the halfcourt in Game 2, way up from the 77.5% they averaged during the regular season, and you've got yourself a problem.

While the Raptors haven't done themselves any favours, some credit certainly has to go to the way Boston has played lately. The Celtics had the NBA's best transition defence in the regular season, according to Cleaning the Glass, and they've been able to continue that against Toronto by rushing back on defence and limiting live-ball turnovers. Through two games, the Celtics have turned the ball over 39 times, but only 20 of those have been live-ball turnovers, meaning the Raptors can't even take advantage of 51% of those turnovers by playing in transition.

That inability to get out in transition and score in the halfcourt has put Toronto in a very precarious spot down 2-0 to the Celtics.