The Oklahoma City Thunder travel north of the border to play the Toronto Raptors at Air Canada Centre on Friday.

The Thunder (42-30) have hit a bit of a wall since the all-star break and it's happening at the worst time. In fact, Oklahoma City comes into this matchup losing four-straight and 10 of their last 14 games in total. That has put a huge damper on any homecourt playoff hopes, as this club is sliding steadily down the standings. The Thunder have free-fallen all the way to eighth in the west but it's tight throughout. The San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Clippers are both tied with Oklahoma City and the Houston Rockets are just three games ahead all the way up at third. That means a lot can happen over the final few weeks but recent form indicates that the Thunder will have a tough road come postseason time.

The Raptors (51-21) have pretty much guaranteed themselves a top-two seed in the east, as they're two games behind the Milwaukee Bucks in first and six games up on the Philadelphia 76ers in third. That means they'll have homecourt advantage throughout most of the playoffs, which is all they can ask for with their stout home form. Toronto owns a 29-7 record at home this season and it's obviously a tough task for any team to play in Air Canada Centre. The big thing they need to do is get Kyle Lowry healthy by the playoffs, as he's expected to miss another game here because of an ankle issue. They need he and Kawhi Leonard to be at full strength if they want to go deep into the playoffs and this Eastern Conference race should be a fascinating one to watch for the final month.

These teams actually just played on Wednesday in Oklahoma City, with Toronto prevailing in overtime, 123-114. Prior to that, the Thunder won nine of their previous 12 games over the Raptors dating back to 2012.