We’re past the what, now, because in the NBA after 66 games you have a good sense of who you are, and you don’t have enough practices to change it very much. The Toronto Raptors have risen and swayed and stumbled this season, so it hasn’t been a straight line much of anywhere but to their own basket. There are worse defensive teams, but it’s basically a pit full of Anthony Davis and hopelessness. Sixty-six games in, here we are.

“The best teams in the league, they defend,” said backup point guard Greivis Vasquez after the Raptors were casually drilled 113-97 by the Portland Trail Blazers. “And we do sometimes. But when we have to get stops, especially in this stretch, we haven’t been able to get stops. We have to play with more pride, all of us.”

Sunday night, Portland had opened a 16-point third-quarter lead with offensive ease, and you waited for the Raptors run. You’ve seen those, right? You get a stop, the comatose building rises a little, like a ripple waiting for the wave. You score, you get another stop, and you can feel the energy build. You get closer, your confidence swells, the other team shrinks. There is a dark old library somewhere full of doomed NBA runs, forgotten and dead. But some of them work.

Toronto never really got much of a run, though. They got within eight with 8:37 left, Portland called a timeout, Portland scored the next seven points without LaMarcus Aldridge on the floor. Aldridge killed the Raptors, point guard Damian Lillard killed them, penetration killed them, the Blazers hit 13 three-pointers, fin. The Raptors have lost 10 of 12.

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“We have enough scorers,” said Raptors coach Dwane Casey. “That’s what everybody gets concerned about is scoring the ball, my touches, rhythm, moving the ball. I’m more concerned about getting stops. We got it to (eight) by getting stops. By getting stops and rebounding we got ourselves back in the game.”

Well, within squinting distance, anyway. Portland’s a very good team, which guarantees them nothing in the crowded West. Aldridge bumping Amir Johnson’s chest with his shoulder, dribbling to his left, and swishing a one-legged fading 20-foot jumper with Johnson reaching for it? That is one thing, and to be clear, it is an awesome thing. Being six-foot-11 and that skilled must be a hoot.

But the other shots, boy. On the non-scrambling possessions, it was the same story that has bedevilled this team for much of the season: If you can’t beat a Raptor off the dribble, you have two choices: Either pass it to someone nearby who can, which won’t take long, or just wait. It’s like pulling the string that unravels a knot, and the whole thing is just ribbons eventually. It’s the kind of patient execution you see in a playoff series, say. Milwaukee probably couldn’t do it, with their shooters. Maybe Washington could.

And that’s the problem that keeps on rolling. On the season the Raptors offence has been a top-five outfit, despite this calendar year’s troubles, but you know whose defensive work is worse than Toronto’s 104.4 points per 100 possessions, not including this game? Denver, New Orleans, Orlando, Sacramento, the Lakers, the Knicks and Minnesota. That group includes one plus-.500 team (the Pelicans) and six of the eight worst teams in the NBA, including four of the bottom five. Casey, asked over and over about passing before the game, pointed back the other way.

“Well, the key is we’ve got to stay hungry,” said Casey. “We’ve got to be the hungry team, the hardest-working team in the gym, the team that wants to play together, move the ball.

“Like a lot of things in sports, it’s hard to put your finger on. You’ve just got to keep working on it, talking about it, harping on it, showing film on it. And it’s almost like the light clicks, and something comes in. It’s almost got to be a part of our personality. It’s almost like playing defence . . . I think that’s the thing with sports — you’ve just got to make that a part of your playing personality. And the other night (against Miami) it was.

“Now again, we’ve got to do that to play in this league. We can’t be a team that turns it on and turns it off. That’s been our Achilles heel.”

Last season the Raptors were a top-10 defensive team, and then headed for the glory end of the floor; this season there has been some fast-forwarding to the glory stuff, sometimes solo, like the whole thing’s an action movie. Now that the offence is being revealed as flawed, without the fluidity to thrive consistently, the trouble’s kicking in. Maybe they got complacent too fast, and they just don’t have enough of a margin for error for that. There are talent deficiencies; Toronto is not exceptionally athletic, or big, or consistent.

But Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri keeps saying about this team, “We are learning how to win,” as if it’s a university course, an internship. In a way, it is. They haven’t completed anything, haven’t moved to the next level, haven’t run with the big boys. This group has won exactly as many playoff games as you can win without actually going anywhere. They have time to change that, maybe, sure. But they’re 66 games in, and it hasn’t happened yet.