With less than 20 per cent of the NBA regular season remaining, and with the Raptors positioned to enter the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s second seed, the players and the team’s brain trust recognize that progress to this point hasn’t been linear.
Some nights the Raptors remind you of the club that held the NBA’s best record through mid-December, witness their 118-95 thumping of the Boston Celtics in a high-stakes home game that aired nationwide in the U.S. But they enter a three-game road trip, starting Friday in New Orleans, with three losses in their last five games.