This has been a remarkable Raptors season. It will be the most wins they’ve ever had in a single season, it will be, barring disaster, the first time the franchise has ever held the first seed in the Eastern Conference. They’ve rebuild their offense to embrace a more pass-heavy game and shoot more threes, to be harder to stop in the playoffs. They’ve rebuilt their bench, giving minutes to twelve players(and Malcolm Miller and Lorenzo Brown in different spots, as well), so they know what solutions exist to potential problems in their depth. They trusted Fred Van Vleet and Delon Wright to handle the minutes leading the bench so that DeMar DeRozan and, especially, Kyle Lowry haven’t had to carry as much of the load, and should be better rested for the more important games.
All of these things they’ve done in the hopes of a better playoff run than years past, in the hopes of competing with LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers to win the Eastern Conference. Winning the East and guaranteeing home court advantage until the Finals is important, because the Raptors also have the second best home record in the league, at 32-7, and are tied for the best net rating at home with the Golden State Warriors. This gives them the opportunity to dictate the terms of a playoff series, to force an opponent to come into their building and win at least one game in a hostile environment.
The catch, however, is that the Raptors will have to slay one last demon of playoffs past to fully make that matter. They’ll have to come into each series in the playoffs putting their best foot forward. In past years, the Raptors have been a good enough team at making adjustments as a series goes on, they eventually solved Paul George enough to get past the Indiana Pacers, found a way to unleash DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry to get past the Miami Heat, and last year, found a lineup that neutralized the length and athleticism of Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks enough to get through the first round. The challenge comes with, holding home court in each series, you want to be the team dictating the adjustments of opponents, not adjusting to their strengths.
This Raptors roster is also well built to make adjustments, and works well to Casey’s strength. It’s a deep roster with lots of positional versatility and plenty of answers to the various questions posed by opponents, and that’s been seen throughout the year as they’ve made life difficult for nearly every opponent. That will lend itself to having a large margin for error should a series go sideways. But the playoffs themselves are a marathon, not a sprint, and part of having sustained success and making it to the later reaches is not making your life more difficult than it has to be, and that means finding rest between series. It means that every time the Raptors lose a game that they don’t have to in early rounds, that makes life just a little harder in the rest of the journey.
The playoff path this year will likely be chock full of those past opponents, whether it’s Miami, Milwaukee, or Washington in the first round, with Cleveland and Indiana potentially waiting in later rounds. The positive is though the Raptors are undefeated at the Air Canada against other top teams in the Eastern Conference, at 6-0 now against Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Indiana at home, with one game remaining against the Pacers. That’s something they’ll have to take advantage of.
It’s been a fun season for the Raptors, and it could be their best playoff run the organization has had too. That means that they might have to get over their toughest hurdle yet though, and that’s putting their best foot forward in game 1 of a playoff series. They’ve put themselves in good position to make that happen, and they’ve made sure that if they can win those first games of a series, it’ll be tough sledding for their opponent to fight their way back into it, now all they have to do, when the playoffs arrive next week, is follow through. That’s something that has escaped the Raptors in previous postseason journeys, and something that will be critical if their goal is to reach the Finals.
