Raptors @ Nets Preview

Tonight the top two teams in the Atlantic Division are going to square off.  The Eastern Conference only has two teams with a winning percentage above .600 and the Atlantic division has the lowest winning percentages in the league.

What that means in, is teams with lower win-percentages are going to have a shot in the playoffs.  Among them are the Toronto Raptors and the Brooklyn Nets.  It will be the finals meeting between these two teams this season.

Both these teams are playing their best basketball all season.  The Raptor have a four-game command of the Atlantic Division and are third in the east.  They have won nine of their last 11 games.

Meanwhile Brooklyn is sixth in the conference and has won four of their last five games.  Perhaps even more impressive is that they have one 11 of their last 15 games played.

The Raptors have faired well against division rivals.  They are 8-2 when playing Atlantic teams.  They are 4-1 when traveling on the road to take on division rivals.  The Raptors have a 2-1 edge in the season series between the two teams.

Back on Jan. 27 DeMar DeRozan, the Raptors leading scorer, sat out a game due to injury against the Nets and the Raptors still won 104-103.

Kyle Lowry stepped up in that game to carry the point-leader role.  He has also stepped up in general as of late. He is averaging over 20 points a game and is shooting for 45.9 percent from behind the arc.  In his last outing he put up 20 points.

Paul Pierce is questionable for Brooklyn after bowing out of a game last Sunday.  The rumor mill seems to indicate that Pierce will be good to play tonight, which is good news for the Nets as the last time these two teams met Pierce put up 30 points.

The Net are the -2 points favorites to win this game over at Bovada.  The game starts at 7:30 p.m. ET.