Having clinched first place in the Eastern Conference for the first time in franchise history the Toronto Raptors enter the final week of the regular season with two games on the schedule and a chance to reach the illustrious 60-win mark.
It’s a nice number, and one that generally suggests that a team can be categorized as ‘elite’ in the regular season, but is otherwise meaningless. So Dwane Casey and his club are left playing out the schedule, awaiting the next stage of their season and looking to make the most of what’s been a historic campaign thus far.
But for the teams below them in the East’s playoff picture this week still holds major implications for seeding and potential matchups. While three teams — the Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks, and Washington Wizards — jockey for position, all the Raptors can do is watch.
Here are the East standings as of Monday morning:
One game separates seeds 6-8, so let’s take a closer look at the three teams the Raptors could be facing in the first round:
Miami Heat: The Heat may lack the star power of the Wizards (John Wall, Bradley Beal) and Bucks (Giannis Antetokounmpo), but they’re a deep team that gets contributions across the board. Miami is a well-coached, dangerous opponent with multiple players on the roster capable of breaking a game open. Newcomers Kelly Olynyk and Wayne Ellington, and rookie Bam Adebayo have all shone while the mainstays like Goran Dragic and Hassan Whiteside have notoriously given the Raptors trouble.
Miami is 9-6 over the last month, but have nothced wins against East playoff teams like Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Washington in that span and will be a tough out regardless of where they wind up in the standings.
Things won’t get easier for Miami thanks to a game versus the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night. That will be followed up by their final regular-season game in which they’ll face the Raptors – a game could possibly be a preview of a seven-game series to immediately follow.
The Raps and Heat are 1-1 head-to-head this season.
Milwaukee Bucks: Sporting a 6-4 record in their last ten contests, the Bucks have notched eye-opening wins against the San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics, and Golden State Warriors.
Milwaukee has been bolstered by the return of former second-overall pick Jabari Parker from his second long-term injury in the last three years. Parker is still looking to find consistency, but is shooting 44 per cent from deep over his last four games. Point guard Eric Bledsoe, acquired early in the season via trade from the Phoenix Suns, has been tearing it up, averaging over 23 points on 63 per cent shooting and 47 per cent from deep over his last eight, while shooting guard Khris Middleton has been averaging over 21 points on 42 per cent three-point shooting since the beginning of March. Oh, and there’s this Greek guy on the team who’s pretty good, too.
The Bucks remain vulnerable, but they will enter the 2018 playoffs with more weapons than last year, when they lost to the Raptors in the first round in a hard-fought six-game series.
Milwuakee will face Orlando next in what should be an easy victory, setting up a stellar final regular-season matchup versus the streaking 76ers, winners of 14 straight.
The Raptors took the season series against the Bucks 2-1 this season.
Washington Wizards: There’s a good chance that the Wizards will stay in eighth place, setting up a rematch series and chance for redemption for the Raptors, who were embarrassingly swept by Washington in the first round in 2015.
The reason for this is simple: The Wizards are in the midst of a downward spiral, losers of eight of their last ten — including their last four games featuring defeats at the hands of two of the East’s worst teams, Atlanta and Chicago.
There are reports of tensions in the locker room, and Wall’s return from injury hasn’t translated to on-court success.
Washington enters the playoffs with a fairly similar team to that 2015 edition (minus Raptors-killer Paul Pierce, of course). Beal was a difference-maker for the Wizards during that series and will be a dangerous opponent, but it’s hard to be confident in Washington’s prospects given how it’s closing out the campaign.
Washington will have a tough test versus Boston next and a loss coupled with a Miami or Milwaukee win will keep it holding onto the final playoff spot in the conference.
The Raptors and Wizards split their season series 2-2.
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The Race for third: Elsewhere in the East, Cleveland and Philadelphia are neck-and-neck for the No. 3 seed. The Sixers’ dramatic 132-130 victory over the Cavaliers on Friday night helped give Philadelphia a one-game cushion over Cleveland.
Philly has been winning without their all-star Joel Embiid, who is expected to return to the lineup during the first-round, but is benefiting from an other-worldly stretch of basketball from likely Rookie of the Year Ben Simmons.
The 76ers should make quick work of the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday, setting up the aforementioned must-watch game against the Bucks to close out the season.
The Cavaliers, meanwhile, couldn’t have gotten a more favourable schedule to wrap up their season, with two games against the 28-52 New York Knicks. Cleveland split their series with Philadelphia 2-2, and one more victory this season will give them the tie-break edge over the 76ers.
Where those two teams land in the standings hold major implications from a Raptors perspective. Whichever team finishes fourth in the East will go on to face the Raptors should both teams advance in the first-round.
Madness out West: Meanwhile in the Western conference, just two games separates seed Nos. 4-9. While we know, with one exception, which teams will be playing, the matchups remain in flux with plenty of intriguing possibilities in store — including a potential first-round matchup between Kevin Durant’s Warriors and Russell Westbrook’s Thunder.
But the real drama is at the bottom of the playoff standings, where the Minnesota Timberwolves — who occupied the third seed at one point this season — are in jeopardy of missing the playoffs altogether. With two games remaining and tied with the Denver Nuggets, the final game of the regular season between Minnesota and Denver is shaping up as a potential play-in game with simple stakes: whichever team wins makes the post-season.
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