TORONTO - It just wouldnt feel like the start of a new Rapto

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TORONTO - It just wouldnt feel like the start of a new Raptors season without a little bit of expectation tempering. Cheap Nike Off White Shoes . Dwane Casey got the ball rolling on the eve of the opener. It started with a question. Reporter: When you take a unit and it hasnt changed that much, and last year no one gave you a chance and this year theyre saying youre going to get 50 wins… Casey: Whos they? Whos they? I want to know who THEY are. Reporter: Just people. Critics. Hows that? How do you take that same nucleus, and all of sudden it was nothing and now it is something, is it just the shear expectations of how you ended? Casey: Well the one thing we have to do as a team is we cant listen to the noise, because that same they are going to be on us if we lose a couple games. So I dont pay attention to that. Yes, the Raptors are coming off their winningest campaign in the franchises soon-to-be 20-year history. Theyve had nearly six long months to reflect on it and the league - and its pundits - have had time to react. The basketball universe has taken notice and suddenly Toronto is back on the map. Sports betting site Bodog.ca has set the over/under for Torontos regular season win total at 48.5. Should they exceed that mark it would be a new franchise best. Twenty-six of 28 ESPN prognosticators have them defending their Atlantic Division title, and yes, some believe they could be a 50-win team, a plateau they have never reached. But success in the NBA, like professional sports in general, can be fickle and Casey - head coach of last years most improved club, with over three decades of experience in basketball - knows that as well as anybody and as a result hes continued to pump the breaks, preaching patience. We havent done anything, he continued. Were still in the building process, growing. Along with that we have expectations, so its a double whammy. Im pushing us to grow and everybody around us is saying, hey you gotta win, youre supposed to win. Im reminding the guys that reality is were still a young team. Internally those expectations are consumed differently. Their locker room is filled with optimistic and ambitious personalities but Casey has worked to manage their enthusiasm while igniting their competitive spirit. Balancing confidence and humility has been his focus this fall. Now we know that were a good team and we know what we can do, said Amir Johnson, who - along with DeMar DeRozan - is the teams longest tenured player, entering his sixth year in Toronto. Theres a lot of stuff we can definitely clean up, and were working everyday, but we know that were good and we have a lot of confidence. We just have to prove it on the court. What would make this a successful season for the club? In my eyes, Patrick Patterson said, winning more games than what we did last year and going further in the playoffs. A reasonable answer and pretty straightforward method of evaluating growth, only Casey knows its not always that clear-cut. Theres a great possibility we could win less games than we did last year and be a better team, said the Raptors coach. Thats a distinct possibility and if that happens so be it. So Im not going on wins and losses or what we did last year. Im more concerned about our development and getting better. To no surprise, neither Casey nor DeRozan were especially interested in playing the how many wins are you targeting game. Nah, I think once you look at it like that youll get caught up in it, said the Raptors All-Star guard. And once adversity hits you might panic because its not going as planned. Thats why weve got to take it day-by-day. However, repeating as division champs is one specific expectation that no one is shying away from. I think defending our division [makes] a successful season, Casey admitted. The Raptors appear to be in an ideal spot to do so, as the Atlantic continues to underwhelm entering the new year. Philadelphia and Boston are still entrenched in the rebuilding phase, New York is in transition learning a new system under a new regime and Brooklyn is another year older and, presumably, slower. With most of the East in flux, there will be pressure to hit the ground running. Doubling down on last years success, the Raptors roster features 10 returning faces. Couple that with a forgiving early-season schedule - nine of their first 12 games at home - and they could have an opportunity to set the bar in their conference. Assuming they take advantage of it. Theres always pressure, Casey acknowledged. I felt pressure back when we won 23 games, even when we were developing and growing. So theres always pressure. Pressure to win, pressure to perform, pressure to produce. So thats always there. The pressure for me is the pressure to continue to grow, at the same time trying to produce. Their biggest test and most accurate barometer of team growth will come in April and May. A 50-win season would be nice - theyve gone without one longer than any current NBA franchise - but their first ever seven-game playoff series victory should top their list of goals for this coming campaign. We dont [know what to expect], Casey said. Nobody does. Thats why I say, when they say 50 games, they dont know. Whoever they are. You dont know who we are until we throw it up for real. Well find out who we really are over the next couple weeks. Cheap Nike Off White China . Pretty good hitting, too. Dan Haren pitched six innings and sparked the go-ahead rally with a single, leading Los Angeles to another win over the skidding Atlanta Braves, 4-2 on Tuesday night. Buy Nike Off White Online . - Connor Brown and Dane Fox both scored in regulation and in the shootout, as the Erie Otters extended their win streak to 10 games by defeating the London Knights 4-3 on Saturday in Ontario Hockey League action. http://www.nikeoffwhitecheap.com/ . Duhamel, from Lively, Ont., and Radford, from Balmertown, Ont., were third with 210.84 points. Teammates Kirsten Moore-Towers of St. Catharines, Ont., and Dylan Moscovitch of Toronto were fourth. Duhamel and Radford, who were seventh at the Sochi Olympics, also won bronze at last years world championships in London, Ont.NEW YORK -- Not much has gone right for the Edmonton Oilers and Nail Yakupov in a season where much was expected. The first pick in the 2012 draft showed a glimpse Thursday night of why there was optimism in Edmonton before the season. Yakupov scored with 1:38 left in regulation to give the Oilers to a 2-1 win over the New York Rangers. Ryan Smyth also scored for Edmonton, which is 5-5 in its last 10. Ben Scrivens made 35 saves. "Finally we get rewarded," Oilers coach Dallas Eakins said. New Yorks season-high four-game winning streak came to an end. Derick Brassard scored and Cam Talbot made 29 saves. "I dont think it was consistent enough," Rangers right wing Ryan Callahan said of his teams play. "We need to have more of a consistent 60 minutes to get the win. "I dont think we were getting pucks deep quite enough. Theyre a good transition team with a lot of speed. We were a little sloppy through the neutral zone and when you do that against a team like that it will cost you." New Yorks sloppiness came at a most opportune time for the Oilers. Yakupov one-timed a feed from Sam Gagner past Talbot for the game-winning goal. "It was a good play by our guys down low to protect the puck," Yakupov said. "A great change by (Jordan Eberle). All I had to do was find space in the middle because I saw the two guys behind. I just had to find a spot. I think that was our top game this season. We need to do it to have a good time before the break." Yakupovs goal, his 11th of the season, broke a tie that carried over from the second period. After Smyth opened the scoring 2:56 into the game by shoving a rebound of David Perrrons shot past Talbot, Brassard drew the Rangers even at 1-1 with a slap shot that beat Scrivens 22 seconds into the second periood. Buy Nike Off White Shoes. Brassards goal was his 11th of the season, and it was created by Benoit Pouliot intercepting Eberles pass in the Edmonton defensive zone. Pouliot whipped a pass from alongside the left wing boards to Mats Zuccarello, who found Brassard in the right faceoff circle. "All three of us try to work hard (and) play a simple game," Zuccarello said. "It doesnt matter when you lose. Its really disappointing because I thought we had a lot of chances to close out the game." But the Rangers, who finished with more shots on goal (36-31) and more shot attempts (65-51), could not find a way to solve Scrivens. "He was good," Rangers defenceman Marc Staal said. "We didnt have a lot of secondary chances, missed some good shots. I think you (have) to get in front of a guy like that. Hes playing well and I dont think we had enough traffic, causing rebounds and scrambles." Edmonton appeared to take a 2-1 lead on a power play midway through the second, but what would have been a goal by Gagner was waived off by the officiating crew of Dan OHalloran and Chris Lee. Their ruling was upheld by replay review. "(A shot) hit me right in the collarbone and ended up under my jersey," Talbot said. "It just fell down my back and the whistle had already blown." NOTES: Thursday nights game was the 6,000th regular season game in New York Rangers franchise history. ...Before the game, the Oilers announced they would play the Chicago Blackhawks in a preseason game in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on Sept. 28, 2014. The preseason game will be the third the Oilers will have played in Saskatoon. "Its always nice to get to Saskatoon and see the tremendous support the Oilers have throughout Saskatchewan," Oilers General Manager Craig MacTavish said in a statement. ' ' '