Celtics return home to face first-place Raptors Wednesday night

After dropping all three games on a road trip, the Celtics play seven of their next eight games at the TD Garden, starting with the Toronto Raptors, who have the best record in the NBA.

They were paired together in the very first game of the NBA season last Oct. 16 and again in a Christmas Day matchup.

The Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers had renewed their long-standing rivalry in the second round of the playoffs last spring, and they were being billed as teams bound for the Eastern Conference finals this spring.

So all four of their regular-season games were scheduled for national television in order to get the hype going.

With the season just past the midway point, however, neither the Celtics or the 76ers appear to be on course for a trip to the conference finals.

If the season ended today, the fifth-seeded Celtics would be starting the playoffs on the road against the fourth-seeded Sixers.

While most people were focusing on a Boston-Philadelphia reunion next May, two other teams have stepped forward in the East.

The Toronto Raptors (33-12) and the Milwaukee Bucks (30-12 heading into Tuesday night) own the best records in the league while the 76ers (28-16) and the Celtics (25-18) have failed to meet expectations.

After losing all three games on another miserable road trip, the Celtics find themselves closer to the 10th-place Detroit Pistons than they are to the Raptors.

Toronto makes its second and final visit of the regular season to the TD Garden Wednesday night (8:05, TV: ESPN and NBC Sports Boston; radio: WROR-FM/105.7), and the buzz will be toned down because of the current state of the Celtics.

They trail the Raptors by seven games in this up-and-down season that took a negative turn with losses in Miami, Orlando and Brooklyn over the past week on the heels of a 4-0 homestand.

Kyrie Irving, who sat out the loss to the Nets with a bruised quad, will return against the Raptors while Marcus Smart (illness) and Aron Baynes (hand) are listed as questionable.

While the Celtics can’t get their act together after opening the season with such high expectations, the Raptors have been rolling right from the start.

The Raptors made a bold move in mid-July by acquiring disgruntled forward Kawhi Leonard from the San Antonio Spurs, giving up the popular DeMar DeRozan, a first-round pick and Jakob Poeltl.

Leonard, who becomes a free agent in the summer, left the Spurs on bad terms after barely playing last season, but he has been leading the way in Canada.

Leonard is averaging 27.5 points, eight rebounds and 3.2 assists for the Raptors, who also got the solid Danny Green from the Spurs in the trade.

The Raptors come to the Garden with a five-game winning streak after putting together a pair of six-game streaks and eight straight wins earlier in the season.

Leonard has gotten help from Serge Ibaka (15.9 points, 7.2 rebounds), Pascal Siakam (15.2 points, 6.9 rebounds) and Kyle Lowry (14 points, 9.6 assists) to put the Raptors atop the NBA standings.

Under first-year coach Nick Nurse, the Raptors have had few problems and are building a strong case as the team to beat in the East when the playoffs get going in 12 weeks.

The Celtics, on the other hand, continue to stumble through a disappointing season after being looked at as a team capable of getting close to 60 wins.

The three straight road losses after the perfect homestand have only raised more questions about the Celtics with the season’s second half just starting.

Even though both Irving and Smart did not play against the Nets, there is no excuse for allowing 44 points in the third quarter or getting hit by a 22-2 run by Brooklyn.

The Celtics finish January with seven of the next eight games at the Garden, making only a trip to Atlanta on Saturday night. This will be an opportunity for the Celtics to start putting something together.

Irving was critical of the younger players after the loss in Orlando on Saturday night, and following the setback in Brooklyn on Monday, Jaylen Brown had something to say.

“It’s not the young guys’ or old guys’ fault, it’s everybody,’’ Brown told reporters. “We just have to have each other’s back at the end of the day. We can’t make comments, we can’t point fingers.”

When the season began, there were plenty of questions about the Raptors and how Leonard was going to do north of the border. Now, the questions in the East are about the Celtics and what has gone wrong.