Paul Pierce has completed his first regular season with the Washington Wizards, and his perimeter shooting, veteran savvy and leadership helped the franchise win its most games since the 1978-79 season.

The Wizards finished 46-36 to claim the fifth spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs, where they will meet the fourth-seeded Toronto Raptors. D.C. has lost six of its last seven meetings with Toronto, including all three matchups this season—but that doesn’t have The Truth worried.

“I’ve been in that situation before,” Pierce said. “A lot of things change in the playoffs. Each team’s 0 and 0 so right now we’re a confident group. We feel like we can beat pretty much any team in the East.”

Toronto Raptors v Washington Wizards

The Raptors will have home-court advantage thanks to their 49-33 record, which could be trouble for the Wizards, who went just 17-24 on the road this season. The Raptors went 27-14 at home this season.

Paul seemed to predict this matchup to an extent earlier in the season, after the Raps dominated Washington in the first meeting, when each team was near the top of the Eastern Conference standings.

“This game was to see who was going to be in first place early in the season and they were more ready than us mentally and physically on both ends of the court,” Paul said after that game. “So we just have to take a mental note of this and understand what type of level we have to play at when we come on the road against a team that’s going to be one of the top teams in the East as we are, and we have to be ready from the jump.”

Washington Wizards v Toronto Raptors

More than five months later, the two teams remain among the top in the conference, and the Wizards will have to show that they learned from their earlier mistakes and can handle the Raptors on the road.

The Truth was vital for the Wizards to make it as far as they did, and now he’s going to be even more crucial if they want to make a long run in the postseason. The good news for Washington is that Paul has historically torched the Raptors.

In 60 career games against Toronto, No. 34 has averaged more than 20 points, six rebounds and four assists while shooting .341 from beyond the arc.

More recently, Paul has been less productive but more efficient, putting up about 17 points per game on .527 shooting in his seven meetings with the Raptors over the last two years. He’s also been lights-out from deep in that span, making 19 of his 37 attempts.

The Raptors have owned the Wiz this year, winning all three meetings, but Washington lost the last two games by a combined six points and only the first game was a decisive Toronto win. The Raps ran away with that game, earning the 103-84 win at the Air Canada Centre on Nov. 7, but they had to fight much harder in the next two matchups.

Toronto Raptors v Washington Wizards

In Game 2, Paul knocked down a pair of free throws with about four minutes remaining to cap an improbable comeback and give the Wizards their first lead of the game after trailing by as many as 18 in the fourth quarter. Toronto point guard Kyle Lowry then went on a run to give the Raptors the lead again, but the Wizards tied it up to send the game to overtime. However, Lowry stayed hot and led the NBA’s only Canadian team to a 120-116 win at the Verizon Center.

The Truth finished with 19 points on just 10 shots in that game, and he added five rebounds, a pair of assists, a steal and a block in the losing effort.

The third and final regular season meeting was especially heart-wrenching for No. 34 and the Wizards, as star shooting guard DeMar DeRozan drained a tough jumper over Paul’s outstretched arm to give the Raptors a 95-93 win in Toronto. For Toronto, it was an especially redeeming moment, as The Truth was the one who blocked Lowry’s shot at the buzzer in Game 7 of the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs last year.

Paul, then playing with the Brooklyn Nets, got a hand on Lowry’s last-second effort, ending the Raptors’ season on their home court.

After the game, The Truth had a few positive words about the Raptors and how hard they made Brooklyn work in the series, calling them a “grind-it-out team.”

“It was a great playoff series,” Paul said. “They’re going to be tough to beat in the near future.”

But that wasn’t the only instance in that series that No. 34 broke Toronto fans’ hearts; in the final minute of Game 1, Paul drained two tough, long jumpers that essentially clinched the series-opening win for the Nets. That game was also at the Air Canada Centre, so Paul won’t exactly get a warm welcome during the starting lineups for Game 1 this year.

When Paul came out as a Wizard for the first time in Toronto this season, the crowd reacted accordingly.

While the Toronto fans might not love The Truth, he certainly has some respect and admiration for them. After the Nets took the series last year, Paul had plenty of kind comments about the city of Toronto and the Raptors fans that he said were some of the best in the NBA.

“To come away with a win, it means so much more, because you know you gave everything,” Paul said of playing in Toronto. “You were against not only the 15,000 in the building, but you were against the other 15,000 that sat outside.”

“Coming here and doing it on the road in one of the great environments I’ve ever been in. I think back to all the playoffs we’ve played in, and on the road, this is one of the best environments in basketball, as far as the noise, enthusiasm—this is as tough as it’s gonna get.”

Toronto Raptors v Washington Wizards

The series kicks off Saturday with an early game, with the opener scheduled for a 12:30 p.m. ET tip. Paul and the rest of the Wizards starters got some extra rest over the final two weeks or so of the regular season, so they should all be ready to go in full.

Neither team is expected to have any significant injuries to open the series, though each has had its fair share of maladies throughout the year. Each team’s starting shooting guard—Bradley Beal for the Wiz, DeRozan for the Raps—has missed a chunk of time, and players such as Paul, Kris Humphries, Nene, Garrett Temple and Martell Webster have all made appearances on the injured list this season.

The first game will be televised nationally on ESPN and will be the first game of the 2015 NBA playoffs.

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