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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO - As the holiday season approaches, the NBA hasn't exactly gifted Toronto with the friendliest slate of games.

Nearly a third of the way into the campaign, the Raptors have had the league's second-toughest schedule - according to basketball-reference.com - and, with a season-long six-game West Coast road trip on the horizon, it doesn't figure to ease up until the calendar turns to 2017.

By the time they return home on Jan. 4, just 34 games in, they will have played three of their four meetings with the reigning champion Cleveland Cavaliers, both of their contests against the Golden State Warriors and have made 11 of their 15 visits to Western Conference arenas.

"I think the one stretch we had - those two back-to-backs we had, Clippers on one and Golden State and Cleveland [on the other] - it was kind of tough," said DeMarre Carroll. "I think we just worry about trying to get wins and just trying to play the right way. I think if we play the right way, we've got enough talent that we can get wins."

Despite those roadblocks put in front of them by the schedule makers, which of course they can't control, they have done just that: they have found ways to win.

With Monday's 122-100 dismantling of the Milwaukee Bucks, the Raptors have now won nine of their last 10 games. At 17-7, they are ahead of the pace set by last year's 56-win team, who were 15-9 at this point in the season. Although they have dropped all three of those meetings with Cleveland, as well as contests to the Warriors and Clippers - both tough ones in the second night of back-to-backs - they are 17-2 against everybody else (both of those losses coming to the lowly Sacramento Kings, oddly).

Most impressively, they have done something that even the best teams have trouble doing over the course of a long and gruelling NBA season: they have battled every night, without exception. Toronto is the only team in the league that still hasn't lost by double figures. To put that into context, every other club has lost at least three games by 10 points or more, including last year's finalists, the Cavs and Warriors.

"I think it's great, man," said Carroll. "We've been fighting through adversity - we're still missing Jared [Sullinger], he's a big part of what we [want to] do - and for us to be sitting here, number two in the East, [one game] behind Cleveland, it's good. Our biggest thing, I think we've just got to keep fighting and we can't take teams for granted. We're playing great basketball right now, we've just got to keep trying to build off everything we've done."

The Bucks game was the first of five straight against teams that entered Monday at or below .500, with Philadelphia, Atlanta, Orlando and Brooklyn on deck before Toronto heads out on the road. There, the degree of difficulty quickly goes back up. Over Christmas and through New Year's, the Raptors will visit the Jazz, Trail Blazers, Warriors, Suns, Lakers and Spurs - teams with a combined record of 84-65.

From there, they will theoretically reap the benefits as things finally turn in their favour. No team has an easier rest-of-season schedule than Toronto (based on opponents' average margin of victory or defeat). It's around that time Sullinger, out since training camp after undergoing foot surgery, should be nearing his return. The presumed starting power forward has been making progress of late, finally ditching the scooter he was using to get around and putting more pressure on his foot, although it's still encased in a hard cast. With their intended rotation healthy for the first time and most of the heavy lifting already done, the Raptors should have an opportunity to close the regular season strong, especially if their recent trend of stomping on inferior teams continues.

That's Dwane Casey's message to his team, hoping to build good habits as the season goes on: approach each game the same, regardless of the opponent.

"I thought we took a huge dip defensively [a couple weeks ago]," he reiterated. "Some of it was the competition, some of it the schedule. You can’t control that. My thing is consistency and no matter who you’re playing or what the schedule tells you, we’ve still got to fight for consistency and that’s my main thing right now."

Even on Monday night, one of Toronto's most dominant performances of the season so far, some defensive lapses and a third-quarter lull will almost certainly give Casey enough of those 'teaching moments' he always manages to find, win or lose.

"We always got to lean on the things that we could be a lot better at," said DeMar DeRozan, who scored an efficient 30 points on just 11 shots Monday. "Because at the end of the day, we still could be a lot better, especially defensively and we got to keep striving for that so once the real deal comes around, we can win games."

"We’ve got to do a better job of protecting the rim, protecting the paint," Casey stressed after the victory. "A team shoots 47 per cent, we’ve got to make sure we work to get those numbers down. Our whole job now, no matter who we play, is consistency. Consistency offensively and then consistency defensively."