NBA games of the week: Celtics chase down Raptors

Wednesday, Apr. 4: Boston at Toronto, 8:00 p.m. ET

This could be the biggest game of the season for either team. If each team wins on Tuesday, then the Raptors can lose this game and still maintain their lead, despite forfeiting the season series.

As for the Celtics, their improvement on offense over the last six games would have them as a top-10 offense if projected out for the entire season. Again, that’s without their two best players.

Over the last six games, the Raptors’ top-10 defense slipped to 27th. Their 111.7 defensive rating would rank last, even worse than the Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings and Cleveland Cavaliers. Their offense is still holding as strong as it has been all season.

Part of the trouble with the Raptors during this .500 stretch — which, let’s be clear, isn’t awful by any means — is LeBron is lurking. The second-most used lineup, a bench mob of C.J. Miles, Fred VanVleet, Delon Wright, Paskal Siakam and Jakob Poeltl, has been getting outscored by 13 points per 100 possessions. The sample size is only 27 minutes, to be fair, but throughout the season, that lineup as blitzed teams, outscoring them by over 20 points per 100 possessions.

Let’s hope for the sake of chaos, the Raptors lose in Cleveland on Tuesday.