Columnist image

TSN Football Insider

| Archive

There is an air of mystery about this Toronto Raptors team, and not the kind that strikes fear in the hearts of opponents.

More the kind that strikes fear into the hearts of their fans.

Despite the fact Toronto won the Atlantic Division in a landslide and set a franchise record with 49 wins, it's hard to say what this Raptor team is, just how good it is, and what we can expect of it.
 
In many ways, this has been as strange a Raptors season as one year ago, when the team surprised everyone with a 48-win season and playoff appearance when most were expecting to see it tank.

This season, it's been like there were two different Raptor teams – the one that opened the year 24-7 and raced out to the Eastern Conference's best record through December. And the one that has struggled to find its identity since the calendar flipped to 2015, has had to deal with injuries to its best players and performed poorly against teams with winning records.

The Raptors went through the entire season without facing a must-win game, which is part of the reward for their great start and their crappy division. But how do we make sense of a team that has just one win over an opponent with a better than .500 record – since February 20th, nearly two months ago?

Making the Raptors first-round playoff fortune even more difficult to predict is the fact they've drawn an opponent that also peaked during the first half of the season and has struggled with consistency down the stretch, just as they have. Except that the Washington Wizards tend to be very good at those aspects of the game that elude the Raptors – the defensive side – and not so good at putting the ball through the hoop.

How will that dynamic play-out over a seven game series?

How finely tuned is Kyle Lowry?

Will we finally get to see Lowry and DeMar DeRozan both performing at the top of their respective games as they did back in the early stages of the season?

Is it possible this season can be considered anything but a failure unless Toronto secures its first-ever 7-game series win?

Can a team that has struggled so badly to play good defence flick the switch when the style of game gets much tougher and more physical?

So many questions, so much to be answered.

We're all for the Raptors to show us just who they really are.