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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO – It’s a weird wrinkle in the NBA schedule.

The Toronto Raptors still have 20 games left to play, almost a quarter of their regular-season slate, and the playoffs are still six weeks away. However, they’re done with Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Indiana and, as of Tuesday night, they’re done with Boston, too.

They will have to wait at least two months to see any of the four teams that stand in the way of reaching their stated goal – an Eastern Conference title and the franchise’s first trip to the NBA Finals – while those other clubs each play at least three more games within that group.

On the surface, that would appear to put Toronto at a disadvantage. For the Raptors to make the Finals they’ll have to get through at least one of those teams and likely two of them. By that point the stakes will be considerably higher and very little of the data they’ve collected from previous meetings will be relevant.

The Raptors went 8-7 against the rest of the East’s top five this season, with the breakdown as follows: 1-3 versus the first-place Bucks, 2-1 versus the third-place Pacers, 3-1 versus the fourth-place 76ers and 2-2 versus the fifth-place Celtics.

Only one of those games – Tuesday’s 118-95 obliteration of the Celtics – came after the Feb. 7 trade deadline, when Philadelphia and Milwaukee made significant, rotation-altering moves.

Come playoff time, those clubs should be more familiar with each other than Toronto is with any of them, but are we sure that’s such a bad thing? The other side of the coin is they’ll also have to figure out the Raptors on the fly.

Only Boston will have faced them following their mid-season additions of Marc Gasol and Jeremy Lin, and it didn’t turn out favourably for the Celtics. The new-look Raptors showed glimpses of their full potential, especially during stretches of the second and third quarters, outscoring Boston 65-36.

If this was their final test against the best of the East prior to the playoffs, they passed with flying colours, delivering one of their finest two-way performances of the campaign.

Their help defence was as crisp as its been all year, holding Boston to 38 per cent shooting and all-star point guard Kyrie Irving, who combined for 70 points in the previous two meetings, to just seven points. Offensively, they moved the ball to the tune of 33 assists. Kyle Lowry and Gasol, who fuelled an 18-0 run in the second quarter, combined for 19 of those assists, and each drew a charge on the other end of the floor.

Kawhi Leonard looked good after sitting out Sunday’s loss to Orlando. He was a terror on defence and overpowered smaller Celtics defenders around the rim. He even made a few nice passes as his chemistry with his teammates – particularly Lowry – continues to grow.

On the subject of continued growth, Pascal Siakam scored a game-high 25 points and, in an unexpected turn of events, remains the team’s hottest three-point shooter.

A year ago around this time, Siakam went through a 1-for-35 drought from beyond the arc. After shooting an abysmal 22 per cent as a sophomore – the lowest percentage of any NBA player that attempted at least 100 threes last season – he’s up to 37 per cent this year, having hit 12 of his last 16 tries, including 4-of-5 on Tuesday.

If Siakam’s new-found range is for real, and Lowry and Leonard are as healthy and in sync as they looked against Boston, and Gasol gets fully acclimated and can diversify their offence with his ability to the pass the ball, the Raptors’ ceiling is as high, if not higher, than any other team in the East.

“I'm looking around, and seeing, and I'm amazed by the talent that’s here,” said Lin, who scored eight points in his fourth game with Toronto. “People aren't even talking about Pascal night in and night out. I'm not even talking about reporters, I'm saying from a game plan standpoint, when we've been playing against the Raptors on my former teams and stuff, guys like him you don't always have time to go over because you're so worried about Kyle and Kawhi and other people. There's a lot of talent here, so I don't know what the ceiling is, but I know there's more.”

Digging deeper, the Raptors’ month of February wasn’t nearly as convincing as their 8-1 record would indicate. Even their seven-game winning streak featured inconsistent and underwhelming performances or narrow victories over far inferior teams. It culminated on Sunday afternoon in a disappointing 113-98 loss to the Magic.

However, just when you’re ready to talk yourself out of the Raptors, they remind you why that ceiling is so tantalizing and how good they can be if and when the stars align. With Boston in town and the bright lights of the TNT Players Only telecast shining on the season series finale, they did just that.

Granted, these Celtics are not the same team that many picked to win the East four months ago. They’ve underachieved and struggled to find their identity or build chemistry. Still, they’re more than just the fifth team in a five-team race. Nobody wants to face them in May, and with good reason. Given their talent and experience, most assume they’ll come together eventually, even if Tuesday’s loss appeared to drive them even further apart.

This win, as impressive as it was for the Raptors, will seem like a distant memory if and when they see Boston – or any of the other East powers – in the postseason. The silver lining is that, come playoff time, the season series quickly becomes irrelevant, regardless of when the most recent meeting was. By the time the ball is thrown up for Game 1, most of that stuff gets thrown out.

Without the East’s elite teams on the docket, the Raptors have one of the league’s softest rest-of-season schedules. After hosting the Houston Rockets next Tuesday, 14 of their final 17 games come against teams currently below .500, including eight of their last nine.

That doesn’t mean it’s a cakewalk. They’ll face a few tough Western Conference opponents – including Portland on Friday, Houston next week and Oklahoma City twice in late March – as well as some teams fighting for positioning in the bottom half of the East playoff picture.

The schedule gives head coach Nick Nurse some flexibility in terms of how he wants to manage the stretch run. If they go full bore they’ll have a shot at catching the Bucks, who are two games ahead in the standings, and winning 60 games for the first time in franchise history (they need to go 15-5 or better), assuming those things are important to them. Or, more likely, they can play it safe and look for opportunities to rest their veteran starters going into the playoffs.

It’s impossible to know how much of an impact this bizarre scheduling quirk might have on what’s shaping up to be a competitive and entertaining race in the East. What this last month has shown is that the Raptors still have work to do, regardless of the opponent.

“We kind of are where we are right now,” Nurse said prior to Tuesday’s win. “If the playoffs were starting this weekend, I'd feel pretty good about who we are and where we're going. We've still got 20 games to polish some things up and learn some more about who we are. It doesn't really matter who we're playing… They're all games that are gonna help us.” ​