TORONTO — Rebuilds are an ugly affair. Too often, after the years of defeats stack up, no matter how many lottery picks a team has under its belt, a losing culture can take its toll on a locker room.
It weighs heavy on the psyche of a young team, feeling that day after day, week after week, year after year, losing is ingrained and inescapable. Organizations, from top to bottom, start to wonder if there was any point to all those down years, and the gloom of a fanbase becomes palpable.
So when the Toronto Raptors rode a nine-game win streak to the elimination round of the NBA Cup after seasons plagued by middling-to-mediocre results, it felt as though they had avoided getting dragged back into the crab bucket.
While a ticket to Vegas for the NBA Cup semifinals is on the line on Tuesday against the New York Knicks (Sportsnet, Sportsnet+, 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT), so too is a chance to prove that this team’s growth is the real deal, especially against a team that called into question the legitimacy of their place near the top of the Eastern Conference standings just over a week ago in a 116-94 drubbing at Madison Square Garden.
“I think we didn’t put our best foot forward the last time we played them,” Raptors guard Jamal Shead said. “I think we’re on a three-game losing streak now. I think we have to go out there with a little chip on our shoulder and play with something to prove.”
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Watch Raptors vs. Knicks NBA Cup on Sportsnet
The Toronto Raptors host the New York Knicks in the quarterfinals of the NBA Cup on Tuesday. Watch live coverage of the knockout game on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ beginning at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT.
Validation matters to a young team, a team still on the verge of learning what it takes to win. And though the Raptors have been on a downturn, a chance at a trophy — regardless of how some may view the prestige of the NBA Cup — can go a long way to establishing a winning culture for years to come.
Their current run of poor form — five losses in their last six games — began the night before that Knicks loss. But it might be that defeat that stings the most.
It was the first time the Raptors felt exposed, with people wondering whether their nine-game streak was the product of a team taking a leap or simply a schedule deceivingly easy on the eyes.
As they’ve done a bit too often of late, the Raptors got demolished in the first quarter against the Knicks, giving up 41 points off nine three-pointers. Though they’d bounce back with a stout defensive effort in the second, the damage was done. The offence couldn’t keep pace, and a 25-14 offensive rebound disparity was the final nail in the coffin.
Then, after only one day of rest, the Raptors got back to Toronto for a homestand that included four games in six days. And without a second to catch their breath, they got winded. Fast.
Following a win against Portland, the Raptors dropped a nail-biter to the Lakers, were blown out by the Hornets, and fell short of a rally to the Celtics. Three very different losses, but three similar stings and a sense of exhaustion that makes those deep breaths in the Toronto winter air seem cloudier than ever.
“I mean, I’m feeling fatigued. I see you guys, you look fatigued as well,” head coach Darko Rajakovic said of Brandon Ingram’s exhaustion. “It’s hard, but this is (the) NBA, we signed up for this, and we gotta fight through it. It’ll be OK.”
The Raptors will need to be a bit more than OK if they want to keep pace with the Knicks, who boast the third-most productive offence (122.6 offensive rating) and fourth-best net rating (plus-8.4).
In particular, they’ll need Ingram to score at the pace he did against the Boston Celtics on Sunday, when he dropped 30 points on 55 per cent shooting from the field and 57.1 per cent accuracy from three-point range, bouncing back after an exhausted seven-point showing against Charlotte on Thursday.
It’s been a lot to ask of Ingram, who’s suited up for every game this season despite playing just 18 last year and is third in the NBA in total minutes with 817.
But when one result stands between proof of concept and false hope, Ingram — who helped the Pelicans to Vegas in the first iteration of the NBA Cup back in 2023 — said the best course of action is to “throw everything else out the window.”
“We’re going through a little stretch where things haven’t gone our way,” Ingram said on Sunday. “We’ve been in a little losing streak; we lost a couple games, but you know, just remember what happened to us in New York, remember that feeling.
“Just come ready to play, clear our minds and just play free. Understand what our goal is out of this. Just play hard.”
It’ll be tougher without RJ Barrett, the all-too-important swingman who elevated the Raptors offence to the upper echelon of the league over that nine-game stretch. The 19.4-point-per-game scorer is set to be sidelined another week after receiving a plasma injection in his knee.
But the Raptors don’t have the luxury of time; they have one night.
The honeymoon phase of the early season is in the rearview, and the only thing ahead is a chance to prove their mettle, that they genuinely have learned how to win.
You’re not gonna get easy teams every night in the NBA, especially not in the knockout stage of the NBA Cup against sides who have carved out their own path. These aren’t teams settling for empty platitudes. They’re teams like the Knicks, Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Lakers — established teams with established stars.
The Raptors are among these eight teams for a reason, but sticking around is the real test.
“In this league you cannot take anything for granted. Every single night is a new opportunity to compete and to prove yourself, what happened yesterday, good or bad, nobody cares about it,” Rajakovic said after the loss on Sunday. “It’s all about that moment — where (you’re) at, how you compete, and I’m demanding more urgency from the whole team, demanding more scrappiness, because when we do that like we did it in the second half (against Boston), we’re a completely different team, and we can compete with any team in this league.”
If you want to prove you belong with the top teams, you need to beat the top teams. If you want to play games when the lights are bright, you need to win games when the lights are bright.
For the first time in a long time, the Raptors have the chance to do just that.
