It sounds simple but so many teams don’t have a game plan for victory. Young teams — provided they have enough talent — back their way into wins whereas veteran sides execute and trust a strategy night in and night out.

The Toronto Raptors know how to win entering Year Four with the same core. That right there is the benefit of continuity and structure. They know how to get their points, strictly adhere to their defensive principles, everyone knows their role and follows a clear pecking order so no player is ever out of line and trying to do too much.

This is the plan: Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan will be there every night to carry the offense. Those two have formed the backbone of a top-10 offense for three-straight seasons. Year Four is no different — the Raptors rank third in offensive efficiency. The guards will do their thing and everyone else just needs to defend and hit open shots.

When the Raptors get a third player to contribute on offense, they can beat just about anybody. Typically that third option is Jonas Valanciunas (more below) but his effort and conditioning has been inconsistent to start the season. Past that it’s Terrence Ross, the human epitome of streakiness, followed by Patrick Patterson and Norman Powell. It’s never certain from night to night who that third guy will be, but given the Raptors’ depth, chances are good that someone will step up to help DeRozan and Lowry.

(And even if nobody else steps up, the two All-Stars alone can carry the team to victory. See their win against Denver when they combined for 62 while no one else topped 12.)

Down the stretch the offense tends to get rather predictable (hardly a problem unique to the Raptors) as they run sets exclusively for DeRozan and Lowry.

DeRozan typically comes off some dribble hand-off action so that he can get to his dominant right hand, while Lowry almost always works a switch onto a big, before taking him off the bounce for a stop-and-pop jumper after getting the big on his back heel with a strong drive to the cup. Only when they get stuck for they kick it out for resets but they mostly confide in one another in these scenarios.

That strategy looks ugly at times, but credit to Lowry and DeRozan for executing with precision. The Raptors are outscoring their opponents by 34.6 points per 100 possessions in clutch scenarios — everything else comes secondary to that production.

An encouraging sign of late has been the defense, which has also played its part in Toronto’s brilliant crunch time performances. Save for a handful of minor blips (Friday’s 38-point third quarter against Charlotte stands out), the Raptors have been able to lock down on defense. Credit much of this to their bench — the combination of Patterson, Powell, and Cory Joseph have been monstrous.

Three factors have fuelled the defense: limiting 3-pointers, positional versatility, and creative tactics.

After allowing an inordinate amount of threes last season, the Raptors have done a better job of containing penetration at the point of attack which has curbed the amount of drive-and-kick opportunities for their opponents. Credit to them for also scrambling and for picking up their assignments when breakdowns occur. They rank 12th in fewest threes allowed.

Defensive versatility has also been a pleasant surprise as the Raptors have thus far proven capable of surviving different match-ups. The three-headed combination of Lowry, Joseph, and Powell can smother smaller guards (with the exception of unrivalled Raptor slayer Kemba Walker), Patterson is comfortable guarding 1–5, while the three centers in Bebe Nogueira, Jakob Poeltl and Valanciunas can each bring something to the table. Bebe fouls too much, sometime struggles on the glass and gets winded easily, but he has great mobility and length to contest shots. Poeltl is mobile and plays smart positional defense, while Valanciunas dominates the defensive glass.

When all else fails, head coach Dwane Casey has proven to be innovative and flexible by re-shaping his defensive schemes on the fly. This goes beyond the zone defenses that he has employed against opposing bench units and his forced yet encouraging trust in rookies.

Three recent examples come to mind.

Playing with an extremely thin roster against DeMarcus Cousins, Casey had his guards blitz Cousins with double teams to coax a 7-of-21 shooting performance while going up against a pair of overwhelmed centers in Poeltl and Nogueira.

When Walker put on his eerily convincing Stephen Curry impersonation, Casey dug into his bag of tricks and had Nogueira close out the game and trap Walker beyond the 3-point line. He forced someone else on the Hornets to beat the Raptors and that gambled paid off.

A night later, in an exhaustive exchange with the New York Knicks, Casey rolled the dice once again when pressed to find some way to stop Carmelo Anthony. No Carroll left Powell to wrestle with Melo and that was always an uphill battle. Casey solved that with a bait-and-switch: he put Patterson to guard Melo which left poor Powell to battle Kristaps Porzingis. The Knicks fell for the trap by working the mismatch (which really wasn’t a mismatch because the Raptors doubled Porzingis right away after he caught the ball and the Knicks couldn’t find the open man) instead of having Melo run the offense.

Moving forward, the Raptors have four problems to address.

The first order of business should be to shore up the defensive glass. Last year they ranked eighth in defensive rebounding percentage — now they’re 26th. Deploying the zone defense has hurt in this regard as does the downgrade from Bismack Biyombo to physically weaker options in Nogueira and Poeltl.

This shouldn’t be a long-term issue. The Raptors are one of the few teams left who still favor two-big lineups. The roster is also filled with strong rebounders. Valanciunas is a space eater in the paint and Jared Sullinger — when healthy — can also dominate the glass. Expect this issue to fix itself.

The second order of business is health. The frontcourt is short Sullinger until at least January (who knows what condition he will be in after spending months off his feet) and a knee bruise has slowed the already sloth-like Valanciunas.

The other issue is Carroll. He is theoretically a perfect fit for what the Raptors need, but all they need from him at the moment is to be healthy. Carroll’s knees haven’t held up since he went down in the 2015 playoffs during his last year with the Atlanta Hawks. That issue has extended into this season as his performances vary wildly from night to night. His problematic knee has impacted his shot in that he’s mostly shooting with his upper body (producing several painful airballs) and on defense, when Carroll has sometimes been unable to hold his ground in the post, or when Carroll overestimates his physical abilities and gets caught out of place.

Having everyone healthy would give the Raptors even more depth to match-up with opponents. Carroll solves the problem of bigger wings (more below) and can allow the Raptors to downsize beyond the minutes Patterson logs. Sullinger adds more passing and playmaking. A healthy Valanciunas could give the Raptors the steady third option that they sometimes lack.

But for the time being, the Raptors remain exposed against the same mismatches: they still struggle against bigger wing players. This job should be Carroll’s when healthy, but he’s not, so Powell and Patterson have had to split the difference. Patterson uses his size to pressure scorers like Anthony and LeBron James, while Powell leverages his quickness and wingspan to pester the Nicolas Batum types who aren’t as comfortable in the post or driving to the cup. Pascal Siakam should also get some burn in this regard as he certainly has the size and fluidity to guard these types. Hopefully when everyone is healthy Siakam can go down to the D-League to sharpen his skills then return for the playoff stretch.

Lastly the Raptors need to find some way to curb the taxing workload on their star players. Lowry leads the league in minutes played while DeRozan is sixth. Most of this stems to Casey being uncomfortable without at least one of his stars on the floor, hence why he staggers their minutes to cover the entire game, but that’s too costly. The Raptors need to find a third player who can serve as their hub of offense so that Lowry and DeRozan can both sit. This would only need to work for four minutes a game. But as of right now their rotations are firmly set on Lowry and DeRozan carrying the way.

On the whole the Raptors are just as good, if not better, than what most prognosticators predicted. A repeat of last season looks increasingly likely as the Raptors somehow have more depth — not less as originally stated — than last year.

DeRozan has improved, Nogueira has stepped in for Biyombo, getting a full season of Powell in the Swiss Army Knife role held by James Johnson is an upgrade, and the Raptors have a better Luis Scola in Sullinger when healthy.

Meanwhile the East’s fresh round of contenders have looked decidedly average. Chalk it up to inexperience or injuries (both valid excuses) but the Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, and definitely the Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks are not living up to the hype despite much fanfare in the offseason.

What might have gotten lost in the shuffle with Toronto’s preseason predictions is that the Raptors are reaping the benefits of continuity. There is no need to find an identity — they know who they are and what they do. Each player fits into a set role and so long as they play that role, the Raptors can win on any given night. Maybe the names aren’t as sexy as other clubs but nothing is sexier than a win.

And as of right now, the Raptors look poised to win. A lot.