Jose Berrios started the game for the Blue Jays, and for a while, it looked like he would be able to secure the 100th win of his career.
As losing seasons go, the Toronto Raptors can’t ask for much better.
The emergence of some promising young players?
Check.
The improvement of some core players?
Yup.
Some still-to-be-opened presents under the transaction tree that could change the trajectory of the team sooner than later? Well, hello Brandon Ingram.
And yes, that sweet, sweet lottery pick that remains undetermined, so why not dream on that 7.5 per cent chance at the first overall pick that comes with having the league’s seventh worst record.
All of that and a good chance of playing .500 basketball for the second half of an 82-game season?
It’s hard for a rebuild to be less painless than that.
But enough is enough. As the Raptors got set to tip off against the Chicago Bulls there Tuesday night, they had seven games left in the regular season.
There should be only one mission: Lose enough of them to make sure to finish with no worse than the seventh-best lottery odds.
They got off to a good start by getting handled convincingly by the surging Bulls, 137-118 Tuesday night, a result that officially eliminated the Raptors from the post-season contention. The Bulls improved to 34-42 and clinched a spot in the play-in tournament. Chicago has won 10 of its past 14 games.
The loss also snapped the Raptors’ four-game winning streak and dropped their overall record to 28-48, leaving them 3.5 games clear of the San Antonio Spurs, who are eighth in the reverse standings, and 4.5 games ahead of the Portland Trail Blazers in ninth.
That should be enough to ensure the Raptors staying in seventh, but given that the Raptors host Portland on Thursday, finish their season in San Antonio on April 13 and have only one game left against a team with a winning record, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
More efforts like Tuesday’s should help. The Bulls were playing on the second night of a back-to-back after giving up 146 points in a loss to Oklahoma City Monday night, but they still had more pace and energy to their game than the Raptors.
Toronto trailed by seven after the first quarter after allowing Chicago to shoot 70 per cent from the floor and never made any convincing move to indicate they were interested in pushing the Bulls down the stretch. The Bulls shot 56.8 per cent against the Raptors for the game, including 41.2 per cent from three and went to the line 27 times. The Raptors did shoot 20-45 from three but were 24-of-52 from two-point range and only got to the line 11 times.
Still, the Raptors have shown themselves capable of winning games, especially against weaker opponents — even with the loss in Chicago, Toronto is 20-17 since their 8-31 start.
And there is a school of thought that — given the playoffs were never in the picture this season — the Raptors have fumbled already by ‘only’ accumulating the seventh-best lottery odds.
For all the misery that’s been avoided by playing winning basketball over nearly half the schedule, it can’t be overlooked that they have slipped from being tied for the second-best lottery odds with their 8-31 start.
How did that happen, especially in a season where the stated goal was to rebuild with an eye on positioning for the draft?
As always, it’s been a combination of things.
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The Raptors Show
Sportsnet’s Blake Murphy and two-time
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