3 Things You Need To Know About The Toronto Raptors' Winning Streak

Now that the Detroit Pistons’ 13-game losing streak has come to an end, who is the hottest team in the Eastern Conference? That would be another surprise package that no one predicted at the start of the season.

The Toronto Raptors have won nine consecutive contests, and they are starting to make the rest of the league pay close attention. The lone Canada-based team in the NBA has struggled to reach .500 for the past two seasons, and now, they find themselves holding the No. 2 spot in the East with a healthy 14–5 record.

As impressive as a nine-game winning streak looks on paper, there are several nuances to pick apart in order to tell the Raptors’ full story. Here’s a close inspection of Toronto’s performance since its streak started two weeks ago.

It takes stellar play on offense and defense to pull off any sort of winning streak in the NBA. The Raptors have done just that, and the numbers show that their performance on one end of the floor slightly edges out the other.

Since the Raptors began their streak on November 11, they’ve been the second-best defensive team in the league; only the Oklahoma City Thunder boast a better defensive rating than the boys up north. The Raptors’ perimeter defense is especially superb, as athletic studs like Scottie Barnes, Brandon Ingram, and Immanuel Quickley impose their will.

During the same span, the Raptors have been a top-10 offense. To be precise, their offensive rating of 120.0 since November 11 is tied with the New York Knicks for eighth in that category. In head coach Darko Rajakovic’s third season with the team, the Raptors are humming smoothly in terms of offensive production, shooting an efficient 49.6% from the field. Only the L.A. Lakers and Denver Nuggets have a better shooting clip than Toronto.

Here’s the caveat: Most of the wins in the Raptors’ current streak have come against the Eastern Conference’s cellar-dwellers. As a matter of fact, Toronto has defeated each of the bottom-four teams in the East during this stretch.

The Indiana Pacers, who currently hold a 2–16 record, were blown out by the Raptors on November 15; in their November 26 rematch, Toronto squeaked out a 97–95 victory. Meanwhile, the Raptors ate and left no crumbs when they blew out the Washington Wizards (current record: 2–15) in a 140–110 affair on November 21.

Bizarrely, the Raptors defeated the Brooklyn Nets (3–14) on two separate occasions, but with the same final score of 119–109. As for the Charlotte Hornets, they came close but not quite when the Raptors escaped with a 110–108 win on November 17.

To the Raptors’ credit, they twice defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers (12–7) and the Philadelphia 76ers (9–8) during their streak. This means that not a single Western Conference team fell victim to Toronto’s rampage this month.

The next time that the Raptors will face the West will be the first week of December, when they go up against the Portland Trail Blazers (8–11) and the Los Angeles Lakers (13–4). If the Raptors are looking for an even tougher test of their winning ways, the arrival of LeBron James and Luka Doncic at Scotiabank Arena could be just what they need.