None
1.
Wednesday night, the Toronto Raptors wrapped up the most successful regular season in franchise history, winning their 49th game, locking up fourth place in the Eastern Conference and a first-round playoff match-up with the Washington Wizards.
Had the Atlanta Hawks beaten the Chicago Bulls later in the evening last night, the Raptors would have switched positions with the Bulls and finished third in the conference. As strange as this may sound, ending up in fourth is probably the more preferable position heading into the opening round of the playoffs.
Finishing third would have meant taking on the Milwaukee Bucks, a young squad that exceeded expectations to finish 41-41, getting better as the season progressed and they solidified their rotation. In finishing fourth, the Raptors instead find themselves matched up with the Eastern Conference’s other early season standouts who stumbled over the final three months of the season.
Washington finished 2014 with a 22-9 record and arrived at the All-Star Break with a 33-21 mark. Over the final two months of the season, Randy Wittman’s squad went 13-15, with only three of those victories coming against playoff-bound teams.
Not that the Raptors were overly strong in the second half of the season either.
After hitting the break with a 36-17 mark, the Dinos went 13-16 in the second half, needing a strong finish over their final five games against a host of teams playing out the stretch to establish a new franchise high for wins in the season.
Toronto enters the series, which begins on Saturday at the Air Canada Centre, having won four of five and on the upswing, at least in terms of health and how its key contributors are playing.
All-Star point guard Kyle Lowry returned to the lineup for the final four games of the season after dealing with back issues and dropped 26 in the finale against Charlotte, adding 7 assists while hitting on 6-of-9 from deep. Meanwhile, DeMar DeRozan has averaged just under 24 points per game over his last three after missing what turned out to be Toronto’s final loss of the season against Boston on April 11.
If the backcourt tandem is firing on all cylinders, this team has the pieces to advance in the playoffs for just the second time in club history and the first time since Janet Jackson topped the charts with “All For You.”
Yes – it has been that long. Not that they need any added motivation to advance, but Washington forward Paul Pierce provided the Raptors with some bulletin board material earlier in the week.
The veteran, who blocked Kyle Lowry’s last-second attempt in Game 7 of last season’s opening round playoff series loss to Brooklyn, said that he’s not worried about facing the Toronto, saying the Raptors don’t have “it” – that unknown intangible that separates the wheat from the chafe.
Newsflash: Washington has got even less of “it,” Paul.
When they’re running hot, the Wizards can be fun to watch and a tough team to match-up with – All-Star point guard John Wall is one of only two players in the league to average 10 assists this season, second-year man Bradley Beal is a threat from downtown and Pierce has the kind of veteran savvy a team needs in order to make a run in the playoffs. Unfortunately for Washington (and their fans), this is one of the most poorly coached teams in the league and they get very little from their bench. That’s all well and good when the starters are scoring, but that isn’t always the case with this squad and it can lead to problems.
It’s also tough for “The Truth” to talk mess when Toronto swept the season series with the Wizards 3-0, blowing them out in the first game of the season 103-84 before winning a pair of close contests later in the year, 120-116 and 95-93 respectively.
Even though they’ve been an inconsistent unit in the second half of the season, the Raptors are in a good position to potentially advance to the second round of the playoffs. Hopefully this time Masai Ujiri doesn’t incur any bad juju by shouting “F@*$ Washington!” in the middle of Maple Leafs Square.