BOSTON — With a slew of long and lengthy defenders, the Toronto Raptors have the personnel necessary to give the Boston Celtics offense fits.
Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla believes that is by design and cracked a joked about the Raptors’ drafting habits prior to Boston facing Toronto Wednesday night at TD Garden.
“They measure everybody’s wingspan before they draft them and then bring in guys with massive wingspans,” Mazzulla jokingly said.
Mazzulla knows there’s at least one exception on Toronto’s roster, though.
“Except Fred (VanVleet),” Mazzulla said.
Raptors head coach Nick Nurse understands the difficulty in trying stop the Celtics’ offense, which ranks second in the NBA in offensive rating this season. That task should be a bit easier Wednesday with Jayson Tatum, Marcus Smart and Al Horford all sitting out.
Regardless, Nurse likes his collection of defensive talent that can cause problems, especially for teams like Boston, due to their size — the Raptors have five players in their regular rotation that are at least 6-foot-7 — and athleticism.
“We like to think one of our strengths is our depth at wing defenders when we got them all ready to go,” Nurse said. “Precious (Achiuwa), Scottie (Barnes), Pascal (Siakam), O.G. (Anunoby) and Chris (Boucher). We got some kind of depth. That usually enables us to move those guys around a little bit, switch. We really don’t care about the switching and who’s matched up on who.
“It gives us a chance sometimes to put some size on what we would call bigger guards that they usually take advantage of guys they’re bigger than. But we can keep some size on them, too. It’s a lot going on. It’s a tremendous challenge.”
