It's Going To Be Very Interesting To See How The Celtics Look Tonight Against A Team With An Actual Pulse

Brian Babineau. Getty Images.

As fun as the preseason opener may have been, and I assure you winning by 41 points was very fun, I can't say we learned all that much. It was just nice to have something positive to talk about after the weeks of drama surrounding this team and this franchise. It was a relief to see the players looked just as awesome as we remembered, but the Hornets are probably going to stink this season. They don't really present the sort of challenges that we've seen the Celts struggle with in the past, so I wouldn't really consider that a "test" so to speak.

That cannot be said about the Raptors. They are a much more formidable opponent and why I'm very excited to see how the Celts look against a team who not only has an actual pulse but a roster of players and a system that has shown to give the Celts issues at times. While we should all still be taking these preseason games with a grain of salt, I am way more interested to see how the Celts look against a team like TOR than someone like CHA. 

The Raptors also won big in their preseason opener, taking care of the Jazz with relative ease (114-82) so I imagine they and their fans probably feel the same way I do about this game tonight. The openers were fun to get some run in, but this is a much better test for both sides. What stands about to me about TOR is the fact that they brought both Precious Achuiwa and Boucher off the bench, instead choosing to roll with a small ball lineup of VanVleet/Trent Jr/Barnes/OG/Siakam. Having Siakam as a small ball five is a unique twist, and it gives Joe Mazzulla some options on how to attack it.

One thing that stood out to me in their opener was the use of the guards as screeners. Given the Raptors are going to mostly play small, I think this is something to watch tonight. Here are a few examples of that in the opener

Toronto is obviously a much better defensive team than the Hornets, their switching is about a billion times better so I want to see what that looks like when both sides go small. What is the Celts counter going to be when a good defensive team switches on those sets? Given the length the Raptors have on the defensive end, having a solid P&R approach or ways to get Tatum free by using a guard to screen effectively is going to make this team very hard to guard. Given that Rob is going to miss 12 weeks at a minimum, how the Celts play with their small ball lineups is going to go a long way in determining how good they can be. Tonight is a great test for that.

I think it's OK to admit that at times in their matchups last year Tatum had issues offensively with Scottie Barnes and his length. He has the size and quickness to really bother elite scorers so I'm interested to see what Joe has up his sleeve to make things easier on Tatum. This is a Raptors team that is mentally tough, competes for a full 48 and has proven talent on that roster. The Celts can't play like assholes and fall into bad habits or turn the ball over 23 times and think they're still going to win by 41 points. I want to see what they look like when a team punches back and things maybe aren't as easy. We know what this team looks like when things go great, what I want to see is how they do against an opponent that should provide some legit resistance. If you screw around against the Raptors, we all know what can happen

Given that the Raptors don't really play big, this is a huge opportunity for the Grant/Blake/Tatum small ball five lineups. Since these games are fake, let me see what a Smart/Brogdon/White/Brown/Tatum lineup looks like when Siakam is at the five. If we have lineups with Smart off the floor and Brogdon/White in the backcourt, can Brogdon be as effective as a screener as Smart is when paired with Tatum/Brown? If you remember, Smart setting the screen and then rolling and getting the ball at the FT line was a pretty big weapon for this offense, so I want to see how Brogdon does in a similar role. 

To give the Celts problems, you have to be really solid when it comes to perimeter defense, especially at the wing position. If you don't have legit wing defense, you're pretty much cooked against this team. The Raptors have that up and down their roster. Even with FVV being "small", he still has a legit wingspan for a point guard and isn't a complete liability on that end. 

These two teams split the season series last year 2-2 with the Celts only averaging 103 points a game on 40/32% splits with 18.3 TOs a game. Those numbers are pretty gross given what the Celts did against the rest of the league, which is why I'm so intrigued with how they look tonight. Even if we only see the main guys play for a half or something, my guess is we're going to learn a whole lot more tonight than we did on Sunday.