There is perhaps no better matchup for both of these teams than each other. Both squads started the year on top of the world, but sputtered out to an alarming degree as the season went on.

The Toronto Raptors came out of the All-Star break on February 20th and tallied a decisive road win against the East-leading Atlanta Hawks to move to 37-17. Back then, they looked like a convincing 2-seed and perhaps a team that could contend in the Eastern Conference. Since that time, they've gone 12-16 and their horrible defense makes them look more like a team destined to fail and fall early than a realistic playoff contender. On the season as a whole, they may have the league's fourth-best Offensive Rating at 111.0 (second in the East), according to our ESPN's Jackie MacMullan, Pierce said, "We haven't done particularly well against Toronto, but I don't feel they have the 'It' that makes you worried."

That's some bulletin board material if there ever was any, but a big thing is that he's right. The Raptors have never won a seven-game series in their 20-year existence and the more-experienced Nets were able to upset them last season, just as Pierce's Wizards are prime candidates to so again this year. The Raptors' starting lineup has only 59 games of playoff experience, compared to the Wizards' 281 (per TSN's Josh Lewenberg), so that could certainly come into play in this series.

And even if Pierce is now 37 and averaging a career-low 11.9 points per contest, he still managed to put up 14.7 points and 5.3 rebounds per game against the Raps this season, while shooting 48.5% from the field and 40.0% from long range. He might not make the same impact as John Wall or Bradley Beal overall, but you'd better believe that he plans on backing his pre-series words up with a few huge moments in late-game situations.

Series Prediction

This should be a tight series and it'll likely come down to which team overcomes their most obvious deficiencies. If the Raptors can tighten up their defense and get important stops when it counts, their offense should carry them to victory. If the Wizards manage to get hot on offense and continue their lockdown ways on D, they could very well come out on top. Since the Raptors are the home team, Washington is a lousy 17-24 on the road (worse than any other playoff team), and I'm an unabashed Canadian homer, I pick the Raptors to #WeTheNorth the crap out of this series. Luckily, our algorithms agree with me.

According to our algorithms: Raptors are 58.54% favorites.

My final prediction: Raptors in seven.