Quietly, the Raptors closing in on No. 1 seed
By Tim Reynolds
They do things in Toronto.
When it’s time for NBA public-address announcers to introduce the starting lineup before games, the Raptors don’t wait to hear their names called. The starters simply huddle up for a quick chat while their backups gather a few feet away and use a basketball to play volleyball — bumping and setting it to each other before someone spikes a dunk.
They’re laughing. They’re loose. And they don’t mind if few are noticing.
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 three of their final eight 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, entering Monday with a 3 ½ game lead over No. 2 Boston.
“I feel like we have something special that is a wellkept secret,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said.
Canada’s lone NBA team doesn’t seem to move the needle much in the United States. The Raptors are No. differently Toronto Raptors’ Kyle Lowry. 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 best-sellers 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. But 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 needed to be better, 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 season. 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.
Around this time a year ago, Raptors President Masai Ujiri knew there were cries in the Twitterverse to blow up the team, fire Casey, break up DeRozan and Lowry, start anew. He stayed the course. Look what happened: Casey coached the All-Star Game this year and is a coach of the year candidate, DeRozan is 10th in the league in scoring and Lowry set a career-best for 3s.