Raptors closing in on East No. 1 seed
These are happy times for the Toronto Raptors, who kept their stars and coach together even after a string of playoff flameouts and are seeing that continuity rewarded.
If they win two of their final seven games, they’ll break the franchise single-season record of 56 victories. And they’re in position to go into the Eastern Conference playoffs as the No. 1 seed for the first time, with a 3 1/2 game lead over No. 2 Boston.
“I feel like we have something special that is a well-kept secret,” said Raptors coach Dwane Casey.
Canada’s lone NBA team doesn’t seem to move the needle much in the United States. The Raptors are No. 2 leaguewide in wins so far this season, but the NBA doesn’t list them among the top 10 in merchandise sold. They’re led by dynamic All-Star guards Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, and their jerseys aren’t in the league’s 15 bestsellers either. Toronto hasn’t even been tapped for one of the 10 Christmas Day spots on the NBA schedule.
The upcoming playoffs, though, are where the Raptors can make their noise.
This is the fifth consecutive year where Toronto will be playoff-bound, matching the total from the Raptors’ first 18 seasons combined. However, the recent playoff trips haven’t gone as planned, with only three series wins, a home Game 7 loss and getting swept twice.
“We fell,” DeRozan said. “You could turn around and make big changes. But we stuck through it and understood the mistakes and where we needed to be better. We came back figuring out what we needed, how we could continue to push to be better.
“This didn’t happen overnight. This happened over the course of a long period of time.”
This spring could be different for the Raptors. This team is the best-scoring group in franchise history, about to smash the team record set last year. They’re third in the NBA in 3-pointers made, second in the NBA in blocked shots. They’re 15-4 in the games immediately following a loss, and they’ve had four separate winning streaks of six games or more.
The Raptors haven’t been to the NBA Finals yet, and made the East final only once. The credit will really come if Toronto goes deep in the playoffs.