The Washington Wizards stumbled into the postseason, losing five of their last six games, including a season finale loss to the lowly Orlando Magic. A win over Orlando would have netted Washington a first-round matchup with the banged-up Boston Celtics. Instead, the Wizards will play the conference’s No. 1 seed, the Toronto Raptors.

John Wall missed all four regular-season matchups with the Raptors this season, which the teams split, 2-2. In three regular-season games against the Raptors in 2016-17, Wall feasted, averaging 25 points, 10.3 assists and 5.7 rebounds with .473/.308/.826 shooting splits. He will be available in the first round.

On Thursday, Washington announced that forward Mike Scott is going through concussion protocol and that the team had signed veteran guard Ty Lawson for the playoffs. Friday, the league suspended Wizards sharpshooter Jodie Meeks for 25 games for violating the terms of the NBA-National Basketball Players Association anti-drug program, meaning he will be ineligible for postseason play.

Here’s all the information you need to follow this first-round series. This post will be updated with results and news throughout.

Series overview

2018 NBA Playoffs, Round 1: Washington Wizards (No. 8 seed, 43-39, 2nd in Southeast Division) vs. Toronto Raptors (No. 1 seed, 59-23, 1st in Atlantic Division)

Schedule and results

Game 1: Saturday, at Toronto, 5:30 p.m., NBC Sports Washington and ESPN
Game 2: Tuesday, at Toronto, 7 p.m., NBCSW+ and NBA TV
Game 3: Friday, at Washington, 8 p.m., NBCSW and ESPN2
Game 4: Sunday, April 22, at Washington, 6 p.m., NBCSW and TNT
Game 5 (if necessary): Wednesday, April 25, at Toronto, time TBD, NBCSW
Game 6 (if necessary): Friday, April 27, at Washington, time TBD, NBCSW
Game 7 (if necessary): Sunday, April 29, at Toronto, time and television TBD

Review and preview

How Toronto Got Here: After being swept in the second round last year, the Raptors found themselves at a crossroads. But instead of moving on from their core, or firing Coach Dwane Casey, Toronto opted to keep everyone together, and Casey entered training camp intent on changing the way the team played. Not only was he successful — turning the isolation-heavy Raptors into a team that spreads the ball around and fires up threes — but Toronto has had the best season in franchise history as a result. Now comes the final frontier: a deep playoff run that includes truly challenging LeBron James.

How Washington Got Here: Washington is the opposite of Miami. The Wizards have the kind of playoff-proven, top-end talent the Heat lack in John Wall and Bradley Beal, but none of the certainty in effort and execution Miami is known for. The Wizards have stumbled their way down the stretch while Wall rehabbed from knee surgery, only seeing him return in the last two weeks. Washington is good enough to reach the conference finals and give anyone — including the Cleveland Cavaliers — a series, and it is inconsistent enough to lose in five games in the first round.

Opening thoughts: What was Toronto’s reward for having the best season in franchise history? A playoff path that potentially takes them through the three most talented teams in the Eastern Conference playoffs — the Wizards, Cavaliers and Philadelphia 76ers — to reach the NBA Finals for the first time. First, though, the Raptors will try to break a nine-game losing streak in Game 1 of playoff series — a streak everyone in Toronto is now terrified will extend to 10 games.

The fact the Raptors are facing the Wizards — who swept them in the first round in 2015 — won’t help matters. That said, it’s anyone’s guess which version of the Wizards will show up. Washington would be the seventh seed if it had managed to beat just one of three tanking teams — Atlanta, Chicago or Orlando) — it played in April alone. Instead, the Wizards lost to them all — though John Wall did sit out all three of those games.

But Washington does have an all-star backcourt to match Toronto’s, and this should be a far more competitive series than a typical No. vs. No. 8 matchup.

— Tim Bontemps

Season series recap: 2-2

Nov. 5: Wizards 107, at Raptors 96
Nov. 19: at Raptors 100, Wizards 91
Feb. 1: at Wizards 122, Raptors 119
March 2: Raptors 102, at Wizards 95

The latest

>> Anyone expecting Wizards guards John Wall and Bradley Beal to preview their first-round tilt against the Raptors by proclaiming themselves as “the best backcourt in the NBA” will be disappointed. Washington’s duo holds their northern rivals’ Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan in high esteem.

>> While Toronto is the East’s top seed, the Wizards are still attempting to complete the task of finding themselves, which might be a greater challenge than the daunting opponent, writes Jerry Brewer.

, Tim Bontemps writes of Raptors-Wizards, “I want to pick Washington to win this series. The Wizards match up well with Toronto and have shown no fear for them this season … But it’s just impossible to put that much faith in this Wizards team after the way they’ve played this season.” He says it’s Toronto in seven games.

>> Though they’re the underdogs, the Wizards view a matchup with Toronto much more favorably than some of the other teams with lower seeds. And while the Wizards struggled all season with under .500 teams, just as they did on Wednesday in the loss to the Magic, they knocked off nine playoff-bound opponents after the all-star break. They also split the regular-season series with Toronto, players reasoned, and five-time all-star John Wall didn’t play a second in the four games.

>> Bradley Beal reached a personal milestone, playing all 82 games of the regular season. It’s the first time in his six years as a professional that he can claim the Iron Man distinction. But here’s the downside of the 82-game distinction: Beal enters the postseason having logged more minutes than any playoff-bound Washington player since 2008.

>> The Wizards’ struggles over the last couple weeks of the regular season were cause for much hand-wringing in Washington. Coach Scott Brooks used words like “selfish” and “embarrassing.” Among the possible reasons for the slide? Teams figuring out the sets Brooks ran when Wall was sidelined, according to one NBA scout. “If you run the same things week in and week out and those things don’t change, those become stale,” said the scout, who saw the Wizards several times both with and without Wall. “The league doesn’t take that long to adjust to that.”

>> Speaking of Brooks labeling the Wizards, he has often used the word “unacceptable” to describe his team’s play. Actually, we compiled all the times Brooks and Beal said that very word.

>> John Wall returned from his injury and resumed his all-star status by averaging a double-double in points and assists. But Wall and his Wizards teammates are trying to rekindle their chemistry of the past, and their efforts have produced moments of miscommunication.

>> You see it before every game: A double tap, a head bob, a floor brush. Here are the Wizards’ pregame handshakes, explained.

>> Regular season success isn’t foreign to the Raptors, who have exceeded 50 wins each of the past two seasons. But in the postseason, the Raptors have clammed up, needing every ounce of their energy to escape from their first-round series and then continuing to struggle against actual contenders. Tim Bontemps explains how Toronto changed its approach this season in hopes of getting a different result.

>> The Raptors have the NBA’s best bench and have had a strong reserve unit for a while — their 2015 team actually had a higher bench BPM than their starters, which is unprecedented for a good team. But the reliance on the bench is also one of the causes of Toronto’s disappointing playoff results. Here’s a deeper look at the Raptors bench, with some names you may not recognize who are making a big impact.

>> Neil Greenberg crunched the numbers and the Raptors have the second-best chances of winning the title this season at 22.1 percent. The Wizards? Eh, you don’t want to know. But there’s better news for the Wizards: Washington has a 12 percent chance of upsetting Toronto in the opening round. So that’s something!

>> Finally, here’s a complete schedule for the NBA’s first round, with some quick analysis from Tim Bontemps.