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The Raptors had a splendid week, beating the Pacers at home on Sunday, snapping their curse against the Bulls in the most dramatic fashion possible on Tuesday, and then picked up two crucial road wins against Miami and Dallas over the weekend. That’s a five-game winning streak since that players-only meeting after getting blown out by the Oklahoma City Thunder, and an 11-5 mark without Kyle Lowry since the All-Star break (everyone please chill we’re not doing this).
Toronto has the tiebreaker over Washington and we are now one game back of the Wizards for the number three seed in the East and a chance to avoid the Cavs in the second round a.k.a. make it way more realistic for us to make back-to-back Eastern Conference Finals appearances. With nine games left in the season, and plenty of winnable games at home this week (Orlando, Charlotte, Indiana and Philadelphia are in town this week), the Raptors could find themselves in strong playoff positioning by the end of the week.
Daniel Reynolds explored the possibility of the Raptors grabbing a hold of the three seed this week. Daniel Hackett took a look at the team’s win projections as we enter the final stretch of the regular season. Russell Peddle broke down all the new franchise records DeMar DeRozan has been setting. We’re making our way back up the power ranking polls at basketball sites. Daniel Hackett was also here to remind us that even with the team trending up, we definitely still miss Lowry a lot.
Seriously, the Bulls game was crazy, and this really summed up how long the curse had been. Serge Ibaka served a one-game suspension for his role in his scuffle with Robin Lopez. DeRozan was splendid against the Bulls, and Sean Woodley ranked the top 10 best plays of his night and discussed the win and other things with Russell Peddle and John Gaudes on the latest episode of The Headquarters.
Elsewhere, this week’s Bringing Up Bebe involves a bit of James Johnson, and in D-League news, the 905 clinched 1st place in the East. Shouts to Jerry Stackhouse.