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I don’t have the exact date that this conversation occurred, believe me I wish I did, but sometime towards late November or early December I was talking to James about the Raptors’ struggles. I looked at the calendar, saw the teams the Raptors were playing from January 27 to February 24, and got excited. All we had to do, I kept insisting, was stay afloat through the tough stretch, and eventually we would get to the “Month of winning”. A concept most Raptors fans are fairly familiar with by now. A cursory glance at the Raptors schedule shows home games against such quality opponents as the Heat, Pacers, Nets, Kings, 76ers, Grizzlies, and Wizards. Add to that the only road games to be found were trips to Madison Square Garden, Conseco Fieldhouse and the Izod Center. You can see why I’m dubbing it the Month of Winning (MOW).

At the time I was talking to James, I figured the best-case scenario is that the Raptors would be .500 heading in to that stretch of games, and a nice 7-3 or 8-2 record would allow them to easily coast to the playoffs in the 7^th or 8^th seed where they would get spanked by whoever happened to finish 1^st or 2^nd overall. I thought I was being optimistic. Well, the Raptors showed me what optimism really is, setting up for the “MOW” by beating San Antonio, Orlando, Dallas and the Lakers. More importantly than those wins, and the wins over the Heat, Knicks and Pacers, was how the team played. In my optimistic prediction of the Raptors’ season, I spoke about swagger. About the ability to get clutch stops even if the overall defensive numbers weren’t great. I hoped those things would eventually happen, but didn’t really expect them to. Well, I sure as hell didn’t expect them to become staples of wins in January. I also didn’t expect the Leafs to crap the bed again, and the city of Toronto to rally around a rag-tag group of players playing .500 basketball, holding the 5^th seed in the East. Even I, the eternal optimist, am consistently amazed and surprised by the ways the Raptors find ways to win. Winning by gutting out efforts, playing tough physical ball down low, passing the ball around to find open looks, shutting down super-duper stars in crunch time. Guys jumping up and down on the bench, sell out crowds going so crazy that Phil Jackson himself mentions it.

All of the above has me re-evaluating my expectations for the rest of the season. In addition to the Raps’ creampuff schedule over the next stretch, the division-leading Celtics seem to be a bit adrift. Age seems to have caught up REALLY fast with Doc Rivers Big Three. Now, the only reason the Celtics are even competitive in most games is Rajon Rondo. Without him, who knows where they would be? We looked at the Raptors schedule through February (well not completely, they finish off the month playing Portland, Cleveland and Oklahoma City. Assuming they win 1 of those games, the Raptors will win 7 or 8 games that month), but what about Boston’s? Well friends, Boston gets screwed. They start off with a few winnable games, Washington (tomorrow, coming off a back to back. In Washington), Miami and New Jersey are visiting the Toronto Dominion Garden. After that, the poop hits the fan. Home to Orlando, then a 5 game 11 day road trip to New Orleans, Sacramento, the Lakers, Portland and Denver, before coming back home to face New York, Cleveland and New Jersey. Boston would probably be satisfied winning 5 or 6 games in the month of February.

Wait a minute. If Boston wins 5 or 6 games in February, and the Raptors win 7 or 8, that means, that means, by the end of the month the Raptors could be shocking the basketball world and being 2.5 games out of the division lead, and the home court advantage in the playoffs it brings. What? In fact, by Feb 21^st (the Celtics last game of the West Coast trip), the Raptors could be only a SINGLE GAME out of the division lead. WHAT?! Are the Raptors good enough to win this division? It’s starting to look possible. Unfortunately Raptors fans, it is still the Celtics title to lose and I don’t see them giving up their hold on the division crown just quite yet. The Raps still have lessons to learn, and winnable games will still slip away. No, the Raptors will almost assuredly finish the regular season in 5^th place. Which could end up having dire consequences for the Raptors.

The problem is simple, of the four teams in that group atop of the Eastern Conference there are 2 teams that match up very favourably for the Raptors. Cleveland and Orlando are both structured in such ways as to be vulnerable to the Dino’s. It would take an upset, no debating that, but both the Cavs and Magic can be beaten by the Raptors, as we’ve seen from contests thus far (well, assuming the Cavs don’t upgrade from Jamario Moon to Andre Iguodala – that’d change things slightly). Atlanta and Boston however, are quite the opposite. Cavs/Magic vs. the Raps is probably going to be a 6 or 7 game series that could go either way. You know, the type of series that’s decided in the last two to three minutes of every game. I would be shocked if it took more than 5 games for either the C’s or Hawks to dispatch the Raptors. The problem: as it stands today, one of those two teams IS going to finish fourth. Unless, that is, Boston turns their season around, Orlando starts losing games, or Atlanta goes crazy winning/goes crazy losing. Any one of those scenarios coming to pass would create a situation where the Raptors could win their first playoff series in almost a decade.

The question for Raps fans then, is which scenario do you cheer for? Well, if Atlanta slows down and drops to 5^th, the Raptors could wind up 4^th. That’s no good. Home court advantage only comes into play in game 7. The series needs to GET to game 7 before that’s a factor. I am of the belief that no true Raptors fan can cheer for Boston under any circumstances, even selfish ones. The Celtics could be playing the all-stars from Moron Mountain for all I care, still not cheering for them. So that’s out. That leaves a single scenario: Raps fans should be cheering against the Magic and for the Hawks as hard as possible. Lemme lay this scenario out for you; try it on for size.

The East finishes like so: Cleveland, Boston, Atlanta, Orlando, Toronto, Miami, Charlotte, Chicago. The winner of Orlando/Toronto would go on to play the winner of Cleveland/Chicago. Or just Cleveland (ya, I’m going on a BIG limb here). That means back to back winnable series for the Raptors, avoiding the bad matchups until the Eastern Conference finals. Unlikely, incredibly unlikely. The odds are against the Raptors in each series, and I’m no mathematician but I’m pretty sure odds compound when you place them in a sequence like that. However, just because something is unlikely doesn’t mean it’s impossible. In fact, should the East finish that way, an Atlanta/Toronto eastern conference final would not be that much of a stretch, and who would have seen THAT one coming.

Unlikely, again, but not impossible. The Raptors are what they are. They aren’t an elite team (yet), but if I’m coaching a team in the East I do not want to play a team that can score like the Raps can, nor one that can win games in such a variety of games. No, these ain’t your older brothers Raptors. There are going to be ups and downs the rest of the way, but hang with them. The Raptors are a better team than they seemed in November and December and they’re probably a worse team then they’ve seemed in January. But they might not be. That’s the hope we have to hold on to. That, and the hope that Atlanta passes Orlando. Toronto hasn’t asked much of the Sports Gods, well that’s a lie, I’ll try again. Toronto hasn’t received much from the Sports Gods in the past 16 years. For some reason though, 2010 just FEELS different. In 7 Seconds Or Less, after the Suns come to Toronto to play their former General Managers new team for the first time, then assistant coach Alvin Gentry commented that “They [the Raptors] are the Chevrolet version of what we are”. Meaning the Raps were a high octane team without a high octane ride. Well right now this Chevy’s riding high. And I’m going to enjoy the view.