Norman “Normal Powenn” Powell hasn’t really done much in the playoffs so far, but the Raptors are deep enough where it usually doesn’t matter what he does or doesn’t do. There’s not a whole cadre of fans going after him for whatever perceived difficulties the Raptors have faced this series. If anybody’s getting scapegoated, it’s tubby Kyle Lowry, maybe tubby Marc Gasol, noncommunicative Kawhi Leonard, and maybe the useless Jeremy Lin too. Not Powell. His dismal 2017-18 season is still fresh enough in people’s minds that they’re pleasantly surprised when he does something good on the court.
Not that the Raptors have had any problems handling the Magic outside of game one. The Magic have shown an embarrassing inability to score points against the Raptor defense. If game five is a Magic victory, we might see some backlash against the names mentioned above, but the series definitely belongs to the Raptors. I don’t usually predict these things but this prediction seems so sure that I barely even consider it a prediction. It’s more like a statement of fact.
Back to Powell. He didn’t have an overwhelming amount of points this game, but he was efficient and his shots were timely. I’m sure that this game made enough of a positive impression on Magic leadersip that, once Powell’s current contract runs out, the Magic will offer him five years, sixty million. That’s exactly the type of thing I would expect them to do. Powell’s name on their “big whiteboard of trade and free-agency ideas” is still there, but the question marks next to it were erased and replaced with exclamation points.