The Toronto Raptors didn’t have to do much Saturday to solidify themselves strong position for the first round of the playoffs. With the Atlanta Hawks losing to the Chicago Bulls, the Raptors have officially clinched home-court advantage for at least one series, as neither the Hawks nor Milwaukee Bucks can make up the gap for the Eastern Conference’s fourth seed any longer (the Raptors are six games up on the Bucks and own the tiebreaker, and they’re seven games up on the Hawks).
This has long been an inevitability, although it seemed in jeopardy when Kyle Lowry initially went down injured. The Raptors have been rolling, though, and with the Hawks sputtering, the gap has been significant and the top-four seed assured for some time now. While it isn’t the team’s ultimate goal, it’s a nice piece of security, even if the Raptors do have a recent penchant for losing Game 1s at the Air Canada Centre – the Game 7s there have mostly come in handy, and they’ll have that advantage if necessary in round one.
There remains no clarity whatsoever in terms of who Toronto may draw in the first round, though. The Raptors are tied with Washington for the third and fourth seed (Toronto owns the tiebreaker), while Atlanta is just a game back of Milwaukee for fifth and only two up on Miami, Indiana, and Chicago. The Raptors could conceivably still draw five different first-round opponents, plus three different potential second-round opponents depending on how one-through-four shakes out (assuming the favorites win each series). There’s an awful lot still up in the air with less than two weeks and only a half-dozen games left to go.
