RAPTORS’ MID-SEASON MAGIC

At the NBA’s halfway point, Toronto is on track to its best season ever — but they can improve.

It was a major change but a necessary one to remake the Raptors, the well-documented shift to more ball movement and more three-pointers and a switch-as-often-as-you-can defensive philosophy in tune with the emerging athletes on the roster.

The offensive alterations have been stark: Assists are up, three-point attempts are up, and the workload on the all-star backcourt duo of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan has been eased most nights even if it is comforting to have them around when they’re needed.

As the halfway point of the NBA season arrives — the Raptors, at 29-12, have post- ed the best half-season in franchise history — there is no doubt the makeover has been an unqualified success. Or that people are noticing. “Very unique,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said Saturday before the Warriors held off the Raptors 127-125 in an epic game. “I don’t know if there’s another example . . . it is different when you see a team change philosophically with the same coach and a similar roster. Really impressive.

“They’ve adapted, (they) play a much faster, wide-open game. The ball is moving much more, they’re much tougher to guard.” And much tougher to beat. Heading into Sunday, Toronto had the fourth-best record in the league, behind only Golden State, Boston and Houston. The Raptors and Warriors were the only two teams in the league ranked in the top five in both offensive and defensive efficiency, based on points scored or given up per 100 possessions. And Toronto was on pace to have the best regular-season in franchise history, eclipsing the 56 wins they had in 2015-16, when the reached the Eastern Conference final.

But as coach Dwane Casey correctly and constantly points out, the Raptors can improve in all aspects of the game, and they must if they hope to play for the conference crown again.

Here are three keys for the final half of the regular season.

Keep playing hard: In the wake of the second half rally against the Warriors on Saturday, and Thursday’s drubbing of the Cleveland Cavaliers, DeRozan was asked what he’d learned about his team from the two games.

“What we’ve known all year,” he said. “We fight. Period.”

Keeping that competitive nature is an absolute must in the last 41games. The Raptors aren’t likely to win too many games on talent alone but combining an abundance of talent with playing hard on every possession will keep them among the league’s elite.

With few exceptions — Saturday’s first half was one — the Raptors have not been overwhelmed for any sustained period in any game. They showed true belief in themselves and saw the benefit of hard work in the second half against Golden State.

“I was proud the way the guys competed,” Casey said. “That’s the team that we’ll go places with.”

Keep the kids going: The emergence of the Raptors backups as a tremendously good and versatile unit has been the biggest story of the season.

It is a young group — led at the moment by Jakob Poeltl, Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam and Delon Wright — that seem impervious to pressure. They play fast, defend well, and score just enough to make them dangerous. But getting continued production out of players who’ve never been through what they are about to go through is a lot to ask.

Casey’s point about the Cleveland game, a 133-99 Raptors win, was that the group dominated because it felt it belonged. That kind of belief will be a must when the games get more intense leading into the playoffs. The bench hasn’t had any prolonged stretches of below average play, probably because there are so many players who can bail the team out on different nights. They have to maintain that level of play even if they start to get physically worn down by the length of the season. Be more efficient from long range: The threat of the three-pointer is often as important as making them. An offence predicated on long-range shooting stretches defences, and that creates room for offensive players to get into the lane and to the rim.

So it’s nice that the Raptors are in the top five in three-point attempts per game, at 32.0 — they averaged 24.3 in the 2016-17 season — but they need to be more effective.

Going into Sunday play, they ranked only 25th among 30 teams in efficiency, shooting 35.2 per cent from beyond the range. That’s down from last season, when they shot 36.3 from three.