Over the last few years, the Toronto Raptors have enjoyed some sustained success at the playoff level, and Norman Powell has been an integral part of that. Since the Raptors selected Powell with the 46th pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, he's worked his way into becoming one of the team’s most contributors with some serious standout moments in the postseason.
Of course, that culminated in the 2019 playoffs with a successful championship run, but the legend of Playoff Powell began with his rookie season. Powell, a 22-year-old rookie who played out all four years of his college eligibility, was in and out of the rotation that year, even starting some games because of injuries to DeMarre Carroll.
The Raptors had a tough first round matchup against the Indiana Pacers that year, winning out a competitive seven-game series. They probably couldn’t have done it without Norm, who came through in Game 5 with a huge steal off Monta Ellis’ pass to Paul George for a thunderous tomahawk dunk on the fast break to tie the game with six minutes left.
To this day, that might still be Norm's most memorable play to Raptors fans, and it definitely started what was a prolific playoff career for Powell. The Raptors won that game to take a 3-2 series lead, and made it past the Miami Heat in the second round before running into a wall known as the LeBron James-era Cleveland Cavaliers that year.
And Norm, of course, has gone on to contribute big time in every Raps playoff run since. He’s only gotten better over the last few years, emerging as a near 50-40-90 scorer over the past two seasons and doing it this year on some seriously absurd usage as one of the Raptors' true go-to players.
No wonder half of the league reportedly had interest in Norm. He’s off to join Damian Lillard’s Portland Trail Blazers now, with Gary Trent Jr. and Rodney Hood returning to Toronto. We’re just glad to see that Playoff Powell was able to win a chip in his time with the Raps.
