TORONTO - Coming off his teams most impressive early-season outing and preparing for the lowly 76ers, Raptors reserve Lou Williams stressed the importance of approaching both games the same way. He was pretty convincing and nearly got through the cliche unscathed before succumbing to a last-second Freudian slip. That was one of the things that we spoke about in our meeting this morning, Williams said ahead of Sundays game. That even though theyre 0-6 theyve been in every game. Theyve played some tough teams very closely and we expect another effort from them [tonight]. So were going to come in and take them serious, like an NBA team. Looks can be deceiving but, amazingly, the Philadelphia 76ers are in fact an NBA team. Per Williamss pre-game assertion and to the Raptors credit, they showed their winless visitors no mercy. I thought we were very professional and took a very professional approach, Dwane Casey said following his teams rout of the 76ers in a 120-88 victory. Those guys are a young team and I knew they were going to come out and play hard, and they did that in the first few minutes of the game. Our guys played the way we should play. Facing a cast of characters that even the staunchest hoops head would have difficulty picking out of a line-up, Toronto took the lead less than two minutes into Sundays contest and never relinquished. DeMar DeRozan was the first to identity and exploit a glaring mismatch, welcoming JaKarr Sampson - an un-drafted rookie - to the league, attacking him to the tune of seven points in three minutes. By the end of the opening quarter, they had scored 33 points, two days after dropping 28 on the Wizards, shooting 69 per cent - a percentage that didnt drop below 60 until early in the third frame. Lowrys third-quarter put-back stretched the lead over 20 for the first time and DeRozans nifty 360 lay-up, on the subsequent possession, padded it to 23. That advantage would become 41 in the fourth. Weve been in a lot of games where weve had big leads and lost them, said DeRozan, who scored a game-high 24 points on just 12 shots in 25 minutes of action. Weve been stressing being able to put our foot on peoples necks when we gain the lead and not give them any hope. We didnt let up at any point. We didnt give them no hope and thats how we have to play when we gain leads. Despite Philadelphias clumsy start and all the talk of taking them seriously, this had the makings of a let-down game for the Raptors, feeling good about themselves after acing their biggest early-season test on Friday. Even Casey feared it before the game. For a player to look across and not see a Hall-of-Famer or whatever, its kind of hard for them to see and understand that guys probably trying to audition for 29 other teams and trying to prove himself against you, said the Raptors coach. Thats probably a challenge. But, with a national audience watching on NBA TV, they looked the part of a team that now stands alone atop the Eastern Conference standings (for the first time - after seven games - in franchise history). Its great for the fans, Casey said of his teams standing in the East. Its great for the players to see that, but its not the most important thing right now. Our most important thing is developing a consistent personality. Sundays convincing win was another step in that process. On the other end of the spectrum, the 76ers - dead last in the East - are playing out this season in the hopes of, one day, being able to say the same. With an average age just over 23-years-old, Philadelphia is the youngest team in the league. Only three of their active players have more than 84 games of NBA experience under their belt. In contrast, the Raptors - who are not exactly a veteran club - dressed 13 players on Sunday, each of them having appeared in at least 148 contests. Brett Brown, a former assistant and Gregg Popovich disciple in San Antonio, may be the calmest 0-7 coach in history (though he did pick up one of the quickest technical fouls in recent memory, two minutes into the game). Why panic? Everythings going according to plan. Philadelphia owns the rights to four players selected in the top 12 of the last two drafts. None of them suited up in Toronto - Nerlens Noel (sixth pick in 2013, out - ankle injury), Michael Carter-Williams (11th in 2013 and last seasons Rookie of the Year, out - shoulder injury), Joel Embiid (third in 2014, likely out for the season - foot injury), Dario Saric (12th in 2014, playing in Turkish League). Theyre biding their time. Its a challenge that I really enjoy, said a surprisingly chipper Brown before his teams latest loss. The job that I have now is so different than where I came from because you have a bunch of 20-year-olds that have spent a year, maybe two years in college. I love coaching them, they play hard and I respect their work ethic. I respect their day-to-day energy and I try to convince them that it will pay off, it will add up, you are doing this for a reason. I dont want them to get beaten down by the win and loss column. Not too long ago, Casey and the Raptors were in a similar situation. When Casey took over ahead of the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign, he inherited an inexperienced group, one that former general manager Bryan Colangelo has since admitted was designed to be bad. Only DeRozan and Johnson remain from that team. I was in the same position as a lot of them guys that are over there now, DeRozan said. I know what it takes to really start from scratch, how tough it really is. As long as you stay with it, keep working, slowly but surely itll turn around. Youve got to respect it because you have to start from somewhere. The 76ers may not have a single player from Sundays line-up around when theyre long-term plan finally starts to take shape. Casey, like Brown, used to speak of the process, preaching patience both in and outside of the locker room. He would point to the Spurs and the Pacers, using them as benchmarks. This is what were building towards, he would say. Now, the Raptors are the big brother. Brown can only hope to emulate their path and, like Casey, still be around when it begins to pay off. Personally, I have a lot of respect for the way theyve grown the program, Brown said of the Raptors. They showed Coach Casey some respect with a well-deserved contract extension and now theyve built something. Coming off last year, they feel good about themselves. You can actually see the growth of the program. So, on many levels, you look at that, given what were trying to do, there are parts of what I just said that you hope to duplicate. I mean its tough to establish a culture, Casey said, sympathizing with the position Brown finds himself in. To go from a winning culture to rebuilding is very difficult because your mindset is, each and every night out, you have an opportunity to win, whereas, when you are rebuilding with a young team, you are motivating them to go hard each and every night, to play physical, to play tough and it might not result in a W...and then to be resilent to come back from that the next night. Thats hard to do with a young team, to keep those spirits up and have them to be able to see the big picture. Tandon Doss Jersey Store . A spokeswoman for the NLRB says its "a very incremental move" and does not necessarily indicate the board is close to a finding in the case. NFL owners filed an unfair labour charge against the players union in February, arguing that the union was not negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement in good faith. 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The Orange beat Notre Dame and Clemson last week to remain one of only two undefeated teams in Division I mens basketball. Wichita State is the other. Syracuse received all 65 first-place votes and 1,625 points from a nationwide media panel to keep the top spot for a second straight week after supplanting Arizona. The Wildcats kept the second slot, while Florida, Wichita State, San Diego State and Villanova also remained unchanged from last week. Kansas moved up a spot to seventh, followed by Duke, Michigan State and Cincinnati. Duke rose three spots from 11th, while Cincinnati dipped three places from seventh after having its 15-game winning streak stopped with Saturdays loss at SMU. The second 10 consists of Iowa State, Saint Louis, Louisville, Kentucky, Michigan, Iowa, Virginia, Creighton, Texas and Memphis. Iowa State vaulted five spots from 16th after a pair of wins last week, while Michigan dropped five places from 10th after an 18-poinnt loss at Iowa.dddddddddddd Creighton also tumbled six spots after falling at St. Johns on Sunday. Wisconsin, Ohio State, SMU, Connecticut and Pittsburgh are the last five teams ranked. Wisconsin and Ohio State rejoined the poll after a one-week absence, while Larry Browns SMU Mustangs are ranked for the first time since late in the 1984-85 season. Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Gonzaga each dropped out after losses last week. Oklahoma State had been ranked all season and was as high as fifth in late November, but has lost four in a row and is now dealing with a three-game suspension to leading scorer Marcus Smart after his altercation with a fan on Saturday night at Texas Tech. This weeks ranked matchups include Tuesdays Big Ten tussle between Michigan and Ohio State in Columbus, while Syracuse will put its unblemished mark on the line Wednesday at Pittsburgh. On Saturday, Memphis visits Connecticut and Kentucky hosts Florida, while Sundays action has Villanova traveling to Creighton and another tough one for Michigan at home against Wisconsin. ' ' '