Despite what pundits believe, Raptors are title contenders

After the three-point victory over the Houston Rockets, the Toronto Raptors moved to a 48-17 record — 2.5 games ahead of the second place Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference.

It was an important game for the Raps: the number one team in the east, matching up against the number one team in the west. However, heading into the game, Raptors fans had a sour taste in their mouths and it seemed like Houston had a built-in excuse if they came up short after Jalen Rose said that a Rockets loss would be chalked up to a “scheduling loss”.

And ESPN’s Max Kellerman put the explanation mark on the statement, stating that Houston’s loss to Toronto had nothing to do with the Raptors talent and everything to do with the Rockets’ schedule — even stating that the game wouldn’t mean anything to Houston.

This is nothing new to the Toronto Raptors: they’ve been faced with these types of excuses all season. And it all started when the Raptors didn’t get a Christmas Day game.

The league said the Christmas Day games were chosen to provide fans with compelling matchups, rivalries, star players and competitiveness of teams, yet with games like the 76ers and the Knicks, or Timberwolves and Lakers, the debates began and pleas for a Toronto Christmas Day game grew louder.

DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry were mad. So mad that a few days later, DeRozan scored a franchise-high 52 points on New Years Day (how’s that for star player?).

The Raptors did eventually get a nationally televised game, thanks to the Cavaliers coming to town on Jan. 11. And when the Raps earned the blowout victory over Lebron and company, U.S. media outlets didn’t applaud Toronto, they focused on what was wrong with Cleveland.

Instead of giving credit to the Toronto Raptors, it was reported that Cleveland was in a mid-season funk and having some internal/personnel struggles, including MSN’s headline: Can the Cavaliers pull themselves out of their latest mid-season slump?

And despite beating the number two seeded Boston Celtics by 20 points at the Air Canada Centre on Feb. 6, the Raptors were still being overlooked in the NBA.

So much so, that they weren’t even in the discussions of finals candidates in late February.

That’s right: the number one team in the Eastern Conference didn’t make the discussion.

When former Toronto Raptors star Chris Bosh was a guest on the Bill Simmons Podcast earlier this week, he said what every basketball fan in Canada was thinking.

“They’re in first place in the East. They’re three and a half games behind the best record in the NBA. Nobody’s even talking about it. C’mon! In this day and age where everybody watches their screens everywhere, nobody’s talking about the Raptors.”

But the Raptors do have at least one supporter, and DeRozan was happy to have get some love.

See you in Toronto, Charles.

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