Oh, how things change in the NBA.

If you had said the Eastern Conference would have only three teams with a losing record a month into the season, chances are I would have called you a bozo. In recent years, the NBA West has dominated in terms of talent and performance, while the East took a backseat in competitiveness.

Coming into the season, many prognosticators pegged six NBA title contenders: Golden State, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Houston, the Los Angeles Clippers and Cleveland. Notice just one of the teams resides in the Eastern Conference.

Less than a month into the real games, though, and the Rockets, one of those contenders, have fired the coach who took them all the way to the conference finals last spring. And after starting the week in a nice spot in the East, the Raptors lost three straight and dropped to a 7-6 record - and all the way down to ninth place in a conference in which a whopping 12 teams are at .500 or above.

While a five-point loss to the undefeated Warriors was encouraging, all three Raptors’ losses this past week came down to two possessions, as did earlier losses to the Knicks and Magic. The Raptors are struggling to close out games, and in an all-of-a-sudden competitive Eastern Conference, close losses are costly.

The late game is all about matching up your players with certain situations, one reason why the final minute of an NBA game seemingly lasts an extra ten minutes. Coaches burn timeouts to adjust the game flow after grabbing defensive rebounds, adding shooters on the court to create an extra threat.

On the bright side, the Raptors have the fourth-best point differential in the East despite their recent struggles. Thanks mainly to their ability to get to the free-throw line, they are consistently getting over the century mark. But the Raptors’ top scorers and offensive weapons are shooting at a below average clip. DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry are each around 40 per cent from the floor despite averaging over 20 points per game, while key cogs Terrence Ross and Patrick Patterson have had a slow start to the year, each under 40 per cent.

Those subpar shooting numbers are thrown more into relief by the Raptors’ ranking near the bottom of the league in assists per game (14.3), with only Phoenix and Detroit worse in that category.

This has to improve if Toronto wants to grab their third straight division crown, let alone make the postseason. Luckily for them, division rivals Brooklyn and Philadelphia are already seemingly out of the conversation in the East, leaving only the Celtics and the Knicks as threats to Toronto’s hopes for an Atlantic Division three-peat.