One of the competing media conglomerates that owns part of the Toronto Raptors is at least complicit in the team being stuck with an unenviable starting time for Game 1 of its playoff series, a tip off coach Dwane Casey suggests speaks to a lack of respect for the 56-win team.

Sportsnet, which is a part-owner of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, will broadcast Game 1 against the Indiana Pacers at 12:30 p.m. Saturday on its two main networks.

It will be a television lead-in to — and take away any competition from — a 4 p.m. Blue Jays game in Boston.

A preliminary TV schedule leaked almost two weeks ago had the three major United States basketball networks — Turner, ESPN and NBA TV — settled on Eastern time zone start times of 3 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on each of Saturday and Sunday. When the NBA released its schedule in the early hours of Friday, the only game outside that nine-hour window was Toronto-Indiana.

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The league did also schedule the defending champion Golden State Warriors for a 12:30 p.m. Saturday start to fit with Eastern time zone requirements, suggesting it’s not an anti-Toronto bias at all.

A Sportsnet spokesperson denied the network had any role in the scheduling.

“We had no input into the dates and times for Raptors playoff games,” the spokesperson said through an e-mail exchange.

Casey at no time pointed a finger at the Toronto franchise owners, and suggested the team playing at 12:30 p.m. on the opening day was a slight.

“We have all these 12:30 games and they look at us as the team north of the border that plays the early games when people out west are still asleep. We’ll use that as a little motivation too,” he said. “Evidently someone doesn’t feel like we’re deserving of that prime time spot. We have to use that as motivation.”

The early start — which works against the Pacers and the rhythm of a game day the same as it does for the Raptors — is more about Toronto’s place in the NBA pecking order.

“We’re the No. 2 team in the Eastern Conference, we feel like we should have a premiere time slot,” Casey said. “The numbers may be different, I don’t know, for that time slot it may be good ratings. But we feel like we have an exciting team and we’ve earned the right by winning 56 games or whatever it is to be a primetime game. But again, we’re ready to play if they want to play at 6 o’clock in the morning.”

Game time notwithstanding, Casey feels his team is better prepared for the intensity of the playoffs than ever before. A sweep at the hands of the Washington Wizards a year ago was a vicious slap in the face to a Raptors team that was quite full of itself.

“That experience is huge, and I keep talking about that to you guys, that everybody talks about ‘Oh you got swept, you got whupped last year in the playoffs.’ Yeah we did, but the experience factor was huge,” Casey said.

“I always say you’ve got to go through something to get to where you want to go, and last year was our something.”

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