The most important game of the season. 

Well, until the next one. Heading into Friday night’s visit from the New Orleans Pelicans, the Toronto Raptors only had 10 games left on the schedule. By default, every game is important for a Raptors team that could end up finishing anywhere from fifth to 10th in an Eastern Conference playoff race where five teams were separated by one-and-a-half games before play Friday. 

But here’s why Friday’s meeting with the Pelicans carried extra weight: the Raptors struggles against good teams have been well established at this point. They’ve played teams in the top 10 of the league 25 times this season and are 5-20 against them. 

Conversely, their dominance against bad teams has been complete. Against the nine teams that invested more in losing than winning, the Raptors are 19-4. 

There are plenty of reasons or questions about the reasons why a team with nearly $160 million in salary tied up in five veteran starters needs to beat up on the weaklings to stay in the playoff mix, but that’s for another day.

For now, the question is:

How many games on their remaining schedule can the Raptors realistically win, or will they need to win? 

Of the ten games the Raptors had remaining headed into Friday, three of them are against the types of teams the Raptors only rarely beat: Detroit, Boston and New York, against which the Raptors are 1-8 so far. Three more of them are against teams the Raptors have no excuse not to beat: Sacramento, Memphis and Brooklyn. 

So, if form holds and the Raptors struggle against the quality teams and have the bad ones on lock, the Raptors will likely be 3-3 in those contests. 

Their fate likely hangs on their other four games.

Which brings us to the Pelicans, who are not going to make the playoffs or Play-In Tournament due to an awful, injury-riddled start.  But because they traded away their first-round pick to position themselves to draft Derik Queen last summer, they have no incentive to lose. 

And they haven’t done much losing under interim head coach James Borrego. They are 15-13 since Jan. 23rd, including handling the Raptors pretty easily in New Orleans just over two weeks ago, which was memorialized by the image of Dejounte Murray standing over Jamal Shead with his fists clenched after scoring a late bucket against Shead’s high-pressure defence. 

So we throw them in the mix with the teams the Raptors have left to play, where the results could go either way. Against the 11 teams in the league (including the Pelicans) that are neither in the top 10 nor among the bottom nine, the Raptors were .500 (so far). 

Can they lock up a playoff spot by going 6-4 down the stretch, finishing at 46-36? 

Seems like a decent chance. 

If so, the Raptors probably needed to win........

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