In the last three weeks, the Raptors have gone 7-3, taking games from the Bucks and the Pacers, twice. The reason they haven’t been able to leap their way to the top of these rankings is that their three losses — to the 76ers, Spurs and Magic — all came by at least 18 points. Those losses were so bad that, on the whole, Toronto was outscored by their opponents across those ten games, even though they won three of them.
We’ve talked about it here before, but the prize for the Raptors is really only in making it to the Finals and perhaps winning it all. An ugly loss here or there in the regular season is fine, in theory, as long as they keep demonstrating how high their ceiling is and that they’re closer to that end of the spectrum. The problem is that the Raptors have the lurking shadow of completely falling apart at the worst times. It may not matter for their championship odds but knocking out the random terrible losses could be great for their psychological health.