Raptors are NBA season’s stealth success story; Play-In predictions; late roster moves: Hollinger’s Week That Was – The Athletic

There’s a lot to unpack here from the season’s final few days. We can talk about the Lakers’ shameful treatment of a championship head coach or about Luka Doncic’s calf strain or about some of the interesting strategic decisions that Eastern Conference teams made with their playoff seeding.

We’ll get to most of that later in the week. Instead, I want to talk about something completely different.

Let’s discuss the thing I don’t think enough people are paying attention to, perhaps the season’s quietest success story: This wacky Raptors team that is threatening to upset the Eastern Conference apple cart.

It’s been a stealthy, subtle sneak up the standings, but the Raptors have won two-thirds of their games since starting the year 14-17. That trend line has only accelerated over the season’s last month; the Raps won 14 of 17 before letting off the gas in the finale with their seeding clinched. They pulled this off even with OG Anunoby missing a dozen of those contests and Fred VanVleet missing five of them.

In terms of lineups, this might be the weirdest team I’ve ever seen. The Raptors have NO centers in their starting lineup, but their ENTIRE bench is centers, and somehow Nick Nurse is making it work. This doesn’t seem possible, right? And yet at full strength, the main bench rotation is Precious Achiuwa,

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