Washington @ Toronto preview

Last Meeting ( Mar 2, 2018 ) Toronto 102, Washington 95

The Toronto Raptors set a franchise record for wins during the regular season and earned the top seed in the Eastern Conference for the first time in team history. The Raptors will set about trying to make the deepest postseason run in franchise history when they start by hosting the eighth-seeded Washington Wizards in Game 1 of their first-round series on Saturday.

Toronto was swept in the first round by the Wizards in 2015 but is a different team now with only three players remaining from that squad, including center Jonas Valanciunas. "Finally, we find that connection with each other," Valanciunas told reporters of the team's growth. "We became better players. We were good individual players, but now we are better as a team, as one unit. There’s been a lot of saying, like, there’s no ‘I’ in team. So, finally we probably got it, and now it feels great to play on this team. ... I’m not saying that it’s never been great, but it feels better. It feels like, just enjoy the playoffs." Washington is a different team as well and is just looking to steal one game in Toronto at the start of the series. "We know that we got a tough task ahead of ourselves," Wizards backup center Jason Smith told the Washington Post. "We know we can go up there, we squeak out one game, if we win the second game. We come back home, the home crowd’s behind us — that’s where the fun begins. Like I said, we don’t have the pressure on us. We're the underdog this year. I like being the underdog."

TV: 5:30 p.m. ET, ESPN, NBCS Washington, Sportsnet One (Toronto)

ABOUT THE WIZARDS (43-39): Washington stumbled to the end of the regular season with losses in nine of the last 12 games to fall from contention for a top-four seed all the way down to eighth in the East. “If you look at the big picture, we’ve struggled this past 10 days or so,” Wizards coach Scott Brooks told reporters. "But prior to that, the story to me was that we battled and fought and put ourselves into playoff position, and we did it with John (Wall) missing half of the season. For some strange reason, we didn't finish the job. These last 10 or 12 days we’ve been up and down. We've let go of the rope a little bit." Wall missed over two months with a knee injury before returning on March 31 and he averaged 28.5 points and 13.5 rebounds over his last two games.

ABOUT THE RAPTORS (59-23): The next milestone Toronto needs to achieve is winning Game 1 of a first-round postseason series for the first time. "It's a phenomenon," Raptors coach Dwane Casey told reporters. "There is always that one hurdle you've got to overcome. That's the major one we've got to overcome. "It's got to be mental more than anything." All-Star point guard Kyle Lowry, who combined with fellow All-Star DeMar DeRozan to go 9-of-32 from the field in a Game 1 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks last spring, suggested the team approach Game 1 like a Game 7.

BUZZER BEATERS

1. Wizards SG Jodie Meeks will miss the postseason after being handed a 25-game suspension for a violation of the NBA/NBPA anti-drug program on Friday.

2. Raptors SF CJ Miles went 2-of-14 from 3-point range in the final two regular-season games.

3. The teams split four meetings in the regular season, though Wall missed all four matchups.

PREDICTION: Raptors 116, Wizards 103