The Toronto Raptors are going for five straight wins Monday night as they head out on the road to take on the surprising Indiana Pacers.
But the next three games on the schedule during their mini pre-Christmas road trip will paint a greater picture about the Raptors than their last four games -— all wins.
The most recent homestand included victories over the defending champion San Antonio Spurs, tricky Milwaukee Bucks, and the hapless Los Angeles Lakers and Philadlephia 76ers. What we learned we largely already knew: The Raptors are good enough to compete with NBA’s best (two close losses to the Golden State Warriors) and vulnerable enough to have to pay attention to detail against the league’s weak sisters (losses to the Sacramento Kings and Denver Nuggets).
But their next three road contests will show how they fair in the improved Eastern Conference.
First up is Indiana, who is just 2.0 games behind Toronto and led by Paul George. The Pacers star is averaging 27 points per game and eight rebounds, which are both career highs. Coming back from a career-threatening broken leg, George is the clubhouse leader to be Comeback Player of the Year and if not for Stephen Curry he would be the leader of the MVP conversation.
This is exactly the type of the game the Raptors got the now-injured DeMarre Carroll for. George has been a beast at the three position after C.J. Miles agreed to play the four in his stead. Miles, too, has been a revelation averaging 15.4 points per game.
Like Toronto, Indiana has made an effort to get up more three pointers in 2015 and are second in the league in three point percentage at 38.6 per cent. The Pacers’ George-and-Miles combo average 3.2 and 3.0 three-pointers made per game, respectively, a mark just behind Curry.
Much is made about the Raptors improved defence but the Pacers are giving up just 95.2 a game in comparison to Toronto’s 98.2. Indiana has lost four of the last five however, so the Raptors are getting the Pacers at a good time.
Next up on Thursday are the Charlotte Hornets, who sit just 1.5 games behind the Raptors in the standings and they might challenge Toronto for the best point guard duo in the league. Kemba Walker and Jeremy Lin combine to average 28.7 points per game. By comparison Kyle Lowry and Cory Joseph average 31.1 points per.
Of all of the East teams fighting for supremacy Charlotte has the most stable future as Walker, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Jeremy Lamb and Cody Zeller are all locked up for the foreseeable future as is head coach Steve Clifford who recently agreed to a contract extension. The Hornets will be a team the Raptors are contending with for years.
Lastly, before coming home for the holidays, are the Miami Heat who are 2.0 games back of Toronto right now.
The Heat has arguably the best starting five in the league. All of their starters have an effective field-goal percentage over 45 per cent. The best in the group would be stat stuffer Hassan Whiteside who has an effective field-goal percentage of 63 per cent, however, his value is on the boards where his 11.2 offensive rebound percentage is only rivalled by his 30.1 defensive rebound percentage.
Thus, against Miami, Toronto will miss Jonas Valanciunas, who had five double-doubles in his 14 starts before breaking his hand. Valanciunas this season has been a much-improved defender, posting 11.8 defensive rebounds per 100 possessions and a 102 defensive rating before being injured.
Like any Pat Riley-built team the foundation for Miami is defence. The Heat are second in opponents points per game in the league and are many pundits’ picked to finish second in the East when all is said and done.
For the last decade the Eastern conference has been the Junior Varsity circuit in comparison to the powerful West. Yet this year the pendulum has swung not in terms of elite teams but in terms of depth. Ten of the 15 teams in the East are above .500. By comparison, only seven teams in the West have won more games than they’ve lost. Orlando, 10th in the East with a .522 winning percentage, would be a good enough to be sixth if they were in the Western conference.
As the East has feasted on its Western counterparts this year what will be the determining factor in playoff seeding is how teams on the East coast fair against their geographical neighbours.
The LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers are not yet fully healthy without having the services of starters Iman Shumpert and Kyrie Irving for the balance of the year and still are first in the East. The Cavs are head-and-shoulders the class of the conference and everyone else is playing for second place.
The rest of the conference is a toss up and the Raptors are currently just 0.5 games behind the Cavs for second place. The reason the Raptors are in a good place now is they’ve taken care of business against the East posting a 9-3 record against their conference rivals. It’s not long ago however the Raptors were in seventh.
The next week will go a great length to demonstrating if the rebuilt Raptors are contenders or pretenders in the battle royale that is the East Conference.
Only two games in the standings separate Toronto and the Atlanta Hawks, the team that finished second a year ago which now sits out of a playoff spot. This road trip won’t make or break the season but it will be a litmus test to show if the Raptors have progressed because of their off-season work or are still a work in progress.
A good week could help the Raptors separate from the pack, a bad week could muddy the waters further before the trade deadline. The margin for error for Toronto is slim but that’s a problem that’s not unique to them in the parity-field East.
This week we’ll see if their depth and defence give Dwane Casey the most tools to cope with the beast that is the resurgent East, or if Masai Ujiri has more work to do.