Just another challenge

The Raptors are indeed younger than the Nets and Pierce and Garnett have a championship pedigree from their time together with the Boston Celtics.

But the Raptors aren’t all little wetbehind-the-ears babies and they enter the post-season supremely confident. And the quiet leadership of the likes of Chuck Hayes, the impervious-to-pressure Lowry and coach Dwane Casey should help ease any huge concerns.

As DeRozan pointed out, it is still just basketball at its basics and everyone knows how to play. And knows how to listen to their elders; starting two second-year players in Ross and Valanciunas might not be optimum but their teammates are not going to leave them out on the proverbial island.

“I think they’re going to lean on us a lot but we’re going to help,” Lowry said of the advice they can provide to the true kids.

“We’re all going to be in this together. We’re 15 deep, so we’ve got guys who are very experienced, inexperienced, we’ve got a coach who has a ring. So everyone is going to lean on everybody.”

If the Raptors have shown anything all year, it is that they do care about each other, play for the guy sitting next to them rather than themselves and their “us against the world” mentality has stood them in good stead.

So youth versus experience is just another challenge like the ones they’ve been accepting since December. “Man, we’ve had a chip on our shoulder all year. We don’t care,” said DeRozan. “It ain’t going to stop now. The same chip we had before the season even started, we’ve got it now. Nothing’s going to change, it don’t matter who we’re playing against.

“At the end of the day it’s a playoff team. Only the good teams make the playoffs, right? You’re going to have to play somebody good so it don’t matter to us.”