With just five wins from their first 33 games there was certainly nothing magical about the Washington Wizards' start to the National Basketball Association season.

In fact, it was the type of horrific kickoff to a campaign that would have had Harry Potter thumbing through the sorcery text books searching for a winning spell as Washington disappeared to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings.

But with the season heading into the home stretch, the Wizards are on the rise, and notched their third straight win and seventh in nine games with a 90-84 defeat of the Toronto Raptors on Monday.