It’s a somewhat abbreviated unofficial second half of the NBA season that the Toronto Raptors are embarking on, starting Friday at home against the Boston Celtics.
There are only 25 games left after the all-star break, turning the final eight weeks into a sprint rather than a marathon.
The minutiae of the schedule: 12 at home and 13 on the road; key Eastern Conference games left against Boston, Washington (twice), Atlanta, Indiana (three times); only two of the 25 out of the Eastern time zone.
It adds up to the fact the Raptors control their destiny against teams they are chasing and teams chasing them; how it breaks down at the end of the season in Cleveland on April 12 will have everything to do with how Toronto handles its own business.
Five points to ponder before the stretch run begins.
Let’s make a deal?
All eyes are on Raptors president Masai Ujiri this week leading up to Thursday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline.
He made his one major move last week with the acquisition of Serge Ibaka, but a handful of league sources said during all-star weekend that he was still being proactive. Finding a “big” small forward would be on his wish list but Ujiri is not going to sacrifice the team’s young depth for a rental. He is likely to try to package expiring contacts (Jared Sullinger’s is worth almost $6 million) with a rotation player for a better rotation player. It’s hard to make trades, though, and the chance of one getting done seems low.
Ready for a surge
If you could have drawn a picture of the one crying need for the Raptors roster a week ago it would have come back as a portrait of Serge Ibaka, a veteran multi-faceted forward with shooting and shot-blocking skills.
The question, though, is whether the disappointing 50 games he had in Orlando — a bad team with little direction — is a sign of decline or a matter a bad environment getting to a good player.
Ibaka seems energized by the trade, and by what everyone thinks is an unspoken arrangement for him to re-up in Toronto as a free agent this summer and if he’s right, the Raptors are better.
Getting him acclimated quickly is paramount.
Remember how to win
DeMar DeRozan hit on an interesting point over the weekend, suggesting that during Toronto’s post-Christmas swoon, when the team’s confidence wavered, they forgot what it took to win close games.
And seeing how many times they have faltered in the third and fourth quarter during their 4-15 freefall, it is hard to dispute his contention.
Getting that feeling back, “knowing” they are going to win rather than “hoping” they will, could go a long way to the kind of extended winning streak that vaults them up the standings.
Health and happiness
Getting whole and staying that way is going to be a huge factor in the final 25 games.
Patrick Patterson’s return — and a permanent one rather than the on-again, off-again spurts he has been available for since Christmas — is vital, and having DeRozan and Kyle Lowry as healthy as they can be at this point in the season is equally important.
Toronto has gone through myriad roster iterations so far because not everyone has been available to play. If they find a constant nine- or 10-man rotation the rest of the way, they could close the gap on Washington, Boston and Cleveland ahead of them.
Waiting for others
While Toronto does control its own destiny, what happens around them this week will be significant.
They began an Eastern Conference arms race by getting Ibaka and that might have been enough to stir Boston, Washington or Atlanta — seen as the other contenders behind Cleveland — to do something as well.
So until Thursday evening arrives and the deals are done nor not done, it’s hard to say for sure just who the Raptors will be chasing.
But one thing to consider before the playoffs begin, if first place in the East is conceded to Cleveland: Finishing second or third overall — or even sixth — will mean not seeing the Cavaliers until the conference final. Finishing fourth or fifth might want to be avoided.
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