It’s no longer early in the NBA season for the Raptors, who will finish the first quarter of the year when they host the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday night.

It will be their 20th game in the 82-game schedule — they are 12-7 after a win in Atlanta on Saturday — and any early-season issues should be worked out by now. The middle 40 games of the year are generally when good teams distance themselves from the competition. The last 20 are for setting up the playoff seeding and fine-tuning.

A look at four key components for the Raptors at the quarter mark:

The starters

They’ve been fine for the most part but there are some issues that have arisen and need to be addressed.

The Raptors are at their most effective when they play fast but can they play fast when both Jonas Valanciunas and Sergie Ibaka are on the court together, as they are at the start of the game and the second half each night?

Both are good in their own ways and can thrive in specific matchups, but their overall lack of quickness hurts. It might help to stagger their minutes more so they’re not on the floor at the same time.

DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry have been their usual selves but the other wing spot — which has shifted between rookie OG Anunoby and Norm Powell — has to be solidified. Powell might work better with the second unit and Anunoby might be a better fit as a late offensive option and a bigger wing defender with the starters.

The bench

It has been the best story of the season so far, an energetic group that changes games with overall athleticism.

The loss of Delon Wright will hurt more as time progresses — Fred VanVleet’s been fine but they miss Wright’s length and defence — but the shooting of C.J. Miles and the energy of Pascal Siakam have been better than expected.

Casey’s biggest charge now is to start paring the rotation over the next couple months and deciding which of Jakob Poeltl or Lucas Nogueira should be the primary backup centre. Both have been good in spurts as the Raptors have played 11 or 12 guys a night.

The group of VanVleet, Miles, either Powell or Anunoby, and Siakam has given Toronto an unexpected boost more nights than not and there’s no sign of that unit slowing down.

The schedule

One of the truisms to what’s been an OK but not wonderful start to the season for the Raptors is that the schedule has not been kind. It has been a grind, with a six-game road trip to the west coast, two series of three road games in four nights, and no homestand longer than three games.

But it does turn, starting now, and while nothing is ever easy, there is a chance for practice time and there will be opponents with less than compelling records.

Toronto has a calm stretch of just three home games in 13 days, starting Wednesday, and it doesn’t play a team that currently has a winning record until the week before Christmas.

The Raptors have survived the schedule so far — 6-6 on the road, 12-7 overall, and part of a group trailing Boston — but they must take advantage of the next 10 games to create some separation from the teams around them (Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia) in the Eastern Conference.

The future

As head coach Dwane Casey continually points out, the Raptors are far from a finished product and any sense of complacency right now is ill-advised.

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But they have survived the start of the season and worked through tweaks to the offensive system while remaining in the top dozen or so teams in overall defensive metrics.

Assists are up and they have shown the ability to score well enough to win most games. The ball movement is better than it’s been in years and players seem to be fitting into their roles.

There were some concerns about how everyone would buy into a bit of new philosophy and whether or not the players would revert to old habits if things started going sideways. That hasn’t happened on any consistent basis — there’s been the odd blip — and now it’s a matter of doing what they do better and with even more consistency.

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