Are the Raptors currently the 2nd best team in the East?

[CoachD]

So I shouldn't mention that Utah won with Gobert and Favors combining for 18 minutes??

Dude every team has nights in the NBA where they Loose games to teams who don't necessarily have a better record than them
Utah is a very well coached team and plays very hard. They have one of the Best defenses in the NBA. Every good team has those losses

Of course... But you would agree this looks worse when its coming off the loss to the Bulls, wouldn't you?

[DHK]

Sooo people think the Celtics are clearly better? Ooook, what's the big deal? They got to the ECF last season as the #1 seed, took a game from the Cavs in Cleveland without IT, and followed that up with a 24-6 start (.800) through 30 games without Hayward. Seems like a compelling case to me...

Toronto fans will think Raptors are the 2nd best team,
Boston fans will think Celtics are the 2nd best team or the best team.
Other fans will have divided opinions.
Boston and Toronto are on the same tier and I think it's pure ignorance to some of these people who argue the Pacers/Pistons are better.
I feel Boston's the better team but it's a very slight gap, not as massive as some people may believe.

Are we talking a slight gap with Kyrie or a slight gap with Kyrie and Hayward? There’s a difference there. The first one I could see your point. The second one not so much.

Slight gap with Kyrie. It's hard to say anything about how they do with hayward because there's no information to go off of. The assumption is, they would be better since Hayward is an all star. However, we dont know the chemistry, we dont know the result of Tatum's reduced minutes playing a role on the C's success.

[Asif16]

As far as the OPs concerned..

C's/Cavs
Wiz
Raptors

Cavs >>>>>> Celtics. Sorry bud

[HiMyNameIsTrey]

The Celtics homerism is so bad.

Cavs
Raps/Cs
Bucks/Wiz/Pacers/Pistons

We all gonna lose to Lebron

[RaptorsLife]

since the Celtics loss on November 13th and since Og anuogby was inserted in lineup

Raptors are 12-3 with a + 12.1point diffential

the 3 loses came against @Pacers @ Knicks @clippers

All 3 times raptors lead by double digits.

[hsb]

Hey, all I know is this team is playing so good right now.

[Cyrusman122000]

So I shouldn't mention that Utah won with Gobert and Favors combining for 18 minutes??

Dude every team has nights in the NBA where they Loose games to teams who don't necessarily have a better record than them
Utah is a very well coached team and plays very hard. They have one of the Best defenses in the NBA. Every good team has those losses

Of course... But you would agree this looks worse when its coming off the loss to the Bulls, wouldn't you?

It's the first time since the beginning of the season they've lost back to back games. They probably won't have many situations in the season where it happens again but every team will have multiple ugly losses in a row.cleveland has multiple awful losses early on. It's a long season and each team has the dog days of the year. **** happens
Bulls also are randomly playing well this weeek. Beat the bucks in Milwaukee

[TMU]

Yeah, we hear the joke Frozen Derozan all the time, but seriously... I won't sleep on the Raptors. They look really good this year.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

Big win for raptors tonight along with Saltics loss means the plus minus stats are more favourable for the raps.

Interestingly enough we're getting it done with the starters now. JV looking more tradeable/valuable lately.

Stop baiting a fanbase with comments like "Saltics".

[username_taken]

Big win for raptors tonight along with Saltics loss means the plus minus stats are more favourable for the raps.

Interestingly enough we're getting it done with the starters now. JV looking more tradeable/valuable lately.

Saltics? Are you seven years old?

[Gil]

Raps are a regular season team & their record is always inflated by their dominant bench. I'd take Milwaukee, Boston & DC over them providing they're all healthy.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

The raptors bench have sucked recently though. I guess that's good because the starters have been really good. Overall the bench has been good.

That was salty.

[RaptorPride]

You guys keep saying wait for the playoffs Lowry and Demar won't do ****. But the only team we lost to is the Cavs past two years. The wizards series we were just trash and our team is completely different now. This is probably the best Raptor team ever. Please tell me how a team can choke all the way to an ECF appearance and take two games from the champs.

[DHK]

Raps are a regular season team & their record is always inflated by their dominant bench. I'd take Milwaukee, Boston & DC over them providing they're all healthy.

All the teams in the NBA are a regular season team. The raptors are also a bound-for-the-playoffs team as well.
You clearly dont watch Raptors games. If you're going to make ridiculous claims, back it up with sound reasoning.

[Asif16]

You guys keep saying wait for the playoffs Lowry and Demar won't do ****. But the only team we lost to is the Cavs past two years. The wizards series we were just trash and our team is completely different now. This is probably the best Raptor team ever. Please tell me how a team can choke all the way to an ECF appearance and take two games from the champs.

Lowry and Derozan plays struggled due to injuries and still somehow managed to get their team to the ECF, and the only team to beat the Cavs from the East 2 season ago.

Last year, we get rolled over by the Cavs, who also happened to roll over the both Pacers and Celtics. But nah, let just keep pretending like Toronto just sucks in the playoffs.

[RaptorPride]

You guys keep saying wait for the playoffs Lowry and Demar won't do ****. But the only team we lost to is the Cavs past two years. The wizards series we were just trash and our team is completely different now. This is probably the best Raptor team ever. Please tell me how a team can choke all the way to an ECF appearance and take two games from the champs.

Lowry and Derozan plays struggled due to injuries and still somehow managed to get their team to the ECF, and the only team to beat the Cavs from the East 2 season ago.

Last year, we get rolled over by the Cavs, who also happened to roll over the both Pacers and Celtics. But nah, let just keep pretending like Toronto just sucks in the playoffs.

I can't wait to choke all the way back to the ECF if we don't face the cavs in the second round this year.

[bulliedog8]

You guys keep saying wait for the playoffs Lowry and Demar won't do ****. But the only team we lost to is the Cavs past two years. The wizards series we were just trash and our team is completely different now. This is probably the best Raptor team ever. Please tell me how a team can choke all the way to an ECF appearance and take two games from the champs.

Lowry and Derozan plays struggled due to injuries and still somehow managed to get their team to the ECF, and the only team to beat the Cavs from the East 2 season ago.

Last year, we get rolled over by the Cavs, who also happened to roll over the both Pacers and Celtics. But nah, let just keep pretending like Toronto just sucks in the playoffs.

I can't wait to choke all the way back to the ECF if we don't face the cavs in the second round this year.

I love when people say stupid stuff like the raptors are a treadmill team or are in nba and should blow up. A 55+ win Conference finals contender isnt a treadmill team. Which the Raptors have been the last 3 years. And they have for sure a 3 year window to try breaking through. Masai set the team up well. If they dont get it the next 3 years, then blow up with ibaka lowry and derozan being off the books.

[RaptorPride]

Lowry and Derozan plays struggled due to injuries and still somehow managed to get their team to the ECF, and the only team to beat the Cavs from the East 2 season ago.

Last year, we get rolled over by the Cavs, who also happened to roll over the both Pacers and Celtics. But nah, let just keep pretending like Toronto just sucks in the playoffs.

I can't wait to choke all the way back to the ECF if we don't face the cavs in the second round this year.

I love when people say stupid stuff like the raptors are a treadmill team or are in nba and should blow up. A 55+ win Conference finals contender isnt a treadmill team. Which the Raptors have been the last 3 years. And they have for sure a 3 year window to try breaking through. Masai set the team up well. If they dont get it the next 3 years, then blow up with ibaka lowry and derozan being off the books.

The difference with our team is everyone is young other than our stars and we will be free of all these contracts very soon. We are in a great position to keep winning or even tank if we need to. Every year people predict the raptors to be near the bottom of the playoff teams yet we are top three every year. When we got rid of cojo, pat and tucker people started saying raptors are done they got no bench. Yet we have one of the best benches this year and are killing it.

[Jakay]

I mean this year so far Boston is clearly the better team, and Hayward is too good not to fit himself in nicely. He's white LeBron Jr.

It's still so close though it's a pretty dumb distinction when the answer is "neither are good enough". The one thing that really cements Boston for me in this argument is the Raps really don't have that ice veined game stealer like Boston does with Kyrie. DD and Lowry have both had some moments, but I never get the feeling with either of them that there's some miracle shot coming.

[SFour]

I mean this year so far Boston is clearly the better team, and Hayward is too good not to fit himself in nicely. He's white LeBron Jr.

It's still so close though it's a pretty dumb distinction when the answer is "neither are good enough". The one thing that really cements Boston for me in this argument is the Raps really don't have that ice veined game stealer like Boston does with Kyrie. DD and Lowry have both had some moments, but I never get the feeling with either of them that there's some miracle shot coming.

I feel like a Raptors-Celtics playoff series would go to 7 games so I don't see how Boston is clearly the better team. Maybe right now they are the better regular season team but you have to take in account the difficulty of the schedule. Raptors' schedule was hard at the start of the season and now it's easy so they have a solid chance of catching up to Boston's record.