The final stretch begins.
The Raptors came out of a historic All-Star Weekend with a 28-31 record, good for 10th in the Eastern Conference. After two more victories, Toronto is 30-31 with 21 games to make some ground on the teams ahead in the standings as it looks to make the playoffs.
Could the Raptors still crack the top six in the Eastern Conference? Are they destined to be in the Play-In Tournament? Where do they stand in the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes?
Let's take a closer look at what the next few weeks hold for them.
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Breaking down Raptors' second half schedule
Eastern Conference standings
Only the top six teams in each conference qualify for the playoffs. The team in seventh place will face the team in eighth place for the No. 7 seed. The teams in ninth and 10th place will then play each other. The winner of that game will take on the loser of the "Seven-Eight Game" for the No. 8 seed.
The Raptors face an uphill battle at earning a top-six seed, but they have a 2.5-game cushion on the Bulls and a 3.5-game cushion on the Pacers, both of whom are on the outside looking in at the Play-In Tournament. They trail the Hawks in eighth place by a half-game.
| Rank | Team | Record | Games behind |
| 1 | Celtics | 44-17 | - |
| 2 | Bucks | 42-17 | 1 |
| 3 | 76ers | 39-20 | 4 |
| 4 | Cavaliers | 38-25 | 7 |
| 5 | Nets | 34-25 | 9 |
| 6 | Knicks | 35-27 | 9.5 |
| 7 | Heat | 32-29 | 12 |
| 8 | Hawks | 30-30 | 13.5 |
| 9 | Raptors | 30-31 | 14 |
| 10 | Wizards | 28-31 | 15 |
| 11 | Bulls | 27-33 | 16.5 |
| 12 | Pacers | 27-35 | 17.5 |
| 13 | Magic | 25-36 | 19 |
Toughest games
Tankathon calculates each team's strength of schedule by combining the winning percentage of their remaining opponents. Based on that, no team has a harder remaining schedule than the Raptors.
Toronto has nine home games and 12 away games left. That's not great news for a team that has a winning record at home (19-13) and a losing record on the road (11-18).
The Raptors still have two matchups each with the Celtics, Bucks and Nuggets, who enter the final 20ish games of the season with the league's first, second and third-best records, respectively. (Fortunately for the Raptors, three of those matchups come against the Celtics and Bucks at the very end of the season, at which point they might not have anything to play for.)
Perhaps the toughest stretch for the Raptors comes at the start of March when they play five straight road games. Following two games against the Wizards, the Raptors will take on the Nuggets, Clippers and Lakers. Both the Nuggets and Clippers find themselves in the top half of the Western Conference standings, and every game matters for the Lakers, who are a couple of games outside of the Play-In Tournament.
Here's Toronto's remaining schedule in full:
| Date | Opponent | Time (E.T.) | TV channel |
| Feb. 26 | at Cavaliers | 6:00 p.m. | TSN 1, TSN 4, RDS |
| Feb. 28 | vs. Bulls | 7:30 p.m. | TSN, RDS2 |
| March 2 | at Wizards | 7:00 p.m. | SN One |
| March 4 | at Wizards | 5:00 p.m. | TSN |
| March 6 | at Nuggets | 9:00 p.m. | TSN, RDS2 |
| March 8 | at Clippers | 10:00 p.m. | SN One |
| March 10 | at Lakers | 10:30 p.m. | TSN, RDS |
| March 14 | vs. Nuggets | 7:30 p.m. | SN One |
| March 16 | vs. Thunder | 7:30 p.m. | SN One |
| March 18 | vs. Timberwolves | 7:00 p.m. | TSN |
| March 19 | at Bucks | 8:00 p.m. | SN One |
| March 22 | vs. Pacers | 7:30 p.m. | SN One |
| March 24 | vs. Pistons | 7:30 p.m. | SN One |
| March 26 | vs. Wizards | 6:00 p.m. | SN One |
| March 28 | vs. Heat | 7:30 p.m. | TSN |
| March 31 | at 76ers | 7:00 p.m. | SN One, SN National |
| April 2 | at Hornets | 1:00 p.m. | SN One |
| April 4 | at Hornets | 7:00 p.m. | TSN |
| April 5 | at Celtics | 7:30 p.m. | TSN, RDS |
| April 7 | at Celtics | 7:30 p.m. | SN One |
| April 9 | vs. Bucks | 1:00 p.m. | SN One |
Playoff odds
FiveThirtyEight's model projects the Raptors to finish with a 41-41 record, placing them ninth in the Eastern Conference standings and in the Play-In mix with the Heat, Hawks and Wizards. If they were to finish in ninth place, they would have to win two Play-In games to earn the No. 8 seed.
FiveThirtyEight gives the Raptors a 49 percent chance of making the playoffs. Both the Heat (74 percent) and Hawks (58 percent) have better odds.
Basketball Reference, which bases its playoff probabilities on 10,000 simulations, isn't quite as high on the Raptors, giving them a 41.1 percent chance of making the playoffs. In addition to the Knicks (97.2 percent) and Hawks (45.3 percent), the Heat (56.5 percent) currently have better odds.
Lottery odds
With the 13-worst record in the entire NBA, the Raptors have a 5.7 percent chance of earning a top-four pick and a 1.2 percent chance of earning the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.
If you're not familiar with Victor Wembanyama yet, you're missing out. He's almost certainly going to be the No. 1 pick and has the chance to be unlike anything we've ever seen before. Whichever team gets him will be very happy.