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Head coach Sam Mitchell and the Raptors open the playoffs Sunday in Orlando
The Toronto Raptors enter the post-season not so much lacking confidence as momentum.
The Raptors secured the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference with a 41-41 record, six wins fewer than last season.
But they sputtered down the stretch, winning just three of their final eight regular-season games.
"It is an unbelievable feeling when you get it going," Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell said. "[But] I don't feel like we have done that all year.
"Last year, we got on some rolls. This year, it was always something.
"We finally get Chris [Bosh] clicking and he gets hurt. T.J. [Ford] is playing one of the best games I have seen him play in Atlanta and the last play of the game he gets hurt and ends up missing seven weeks.
"There is no rhyme or reason for when it happens. But you have to remember all these guys are NBA players and they're good.
"When it is your night, it is your night. If we get a couple of guys going at the right time, it is our night."
Toronto's first-round playoff opponent is the third-ranked Orlando Magic, the same team Mitchell's Indiana Pacers swept in a best-of-three series en route to the conference final in 1994.
"They were picked to run us out of the gym," said Mitchell, then a forward with the Pacers. "But in a two-point game, Byron Scott gets open and makes a three and we win Game 1.
"Now all of a sudden we have got confidence. We play Game 2, we win on the road."
Bounced by Nets
The Raptors were bounced in the opening round of the playoffs by the New Jersey Nets last season, Toronto's first playoff series since 2002.
And Mitchell, for one, was quick to admit how difficult it was for the players — most of them competing in the playoffs for the first time — to cope with the heightened pressure of the post-season.
"Me telling Chris Bosh, the first time around, how it was for me is not going to help Chris Bosh," he said. "Because they hear it, but they don't hear it.
"It is different for every person. It means something different for every guy.
"You have to experience it. That is why, the more you experience it, the better you become at dealing with it."
The Raptors open the playoffs Sunday at Orlando (12:30 p.m. ET).
Game 2 goes Tuesday night (7:30 p.m. ET) before the best-of-seven conference quarter-final shifts to Toronto for Game 3 on April 24 (7:30 p.m. ET) and Game 4 on April 26 (3 p.m. ET).
