If this were a John Hughes movie, the Toronto Raptors are the end product — John Bender walking on the field to the tune of Don’t You (Forget About Me) or Cameron Frye sending his dad’s Ferrari out the window.
The Raptors have come of age, through trials and tribulation of years past, from the heartbreak of seeing beloved stars get traded away, to an early-season stretch where all the moves they made had felt for naught. They’ve finally come into their own, and a fifth straight win on Wednesday night against the Philadelphia 76ers proves it.
The Raptors were a little bit of everything in Wednesday’s 121-112 win. They leaned on their brand of high-turnover defence and transition offence, they lost their form from deep but recaptured it, they got killed on the defensive glass but found incredible looks in the paint on the other end. But all in all, they looked like themselves, as they have for the better part of the past 10 games.
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It was also a great make-up win for their last loss, a 130-120 defeat at the hands of the 76ers on Nov. 8 that snapped a four-game win streak. They were on the back of yet another four-game streak coming into this one, but they learned from their mistakes, and as good teams do throughout the season, they grew.
All five starters looked confident and calibrated with one another. They all scored at least 16 points, with Brandon Ingram and RJ Barrett leading the way with 22 apiece. They also all contributed at least four assists, playing coach Darko Rajakovic’s ball-movement-heavy scheme to perfection with well-timed cuts, gorgeous inside passing and an omniscient understanding of where their teammates will be.
Scottie Barnes and Jakob Poeltl looked to be reading each other’s minds when they got to work inside, teaming up for gorgeous interior passing sequences on dump-offs and quick touch passes to get around 76ers centre Andre Drummond.
Then, in the fourth quarter, as the 76ers looked to be getting back into the game, Immanuel Quickley delivered, scoring 11 of his 18 points and drilling two massive three-pointers in the final three minutes to put the game out of reach.
There were moments when it looked as though the game might slip away, like when they went 0-for-9 from deep in the second quarter and lost the frame 28-20. The offence sputtered and the open looks weren’t dropping. But there’s a confidence with this Raptors team that hasn’t been there in years past, and a 44-point response in the third quarter made that clear.
It was fair throughout the streak to wonder if this was real, if the stats didn’t tell the whole story. But you can book it after tonight.
Those nine wins in their last 10 are the real deal. There’s nothing disingenuous about sitting second in the East with a 10-5 record and a top-10 offence and defence. They’ve quelled early-season anguish, found the confidence that comes with being their authentic selves, worked through their problems and grown as players and competitors. The Raptors have developed their own brand of basketball, and it’s working wonders.
Bench mob keeps growing
It’s been a tough sophomore season for Ja’Kobe Walter, who came into this outing averaging only 2.9 points while shooting 32.3 per cent from the field and 27.3 per cent from deep in 11.2 minutes a night.
The 21-year-old has really needed something to break right for him, as his confidence on both sides of the ball has left a lot to be desired in the early goings.
He finally found a groove on Wednesday, finishing with a team-high 11 points off the bench on 4-of-5 from deep and 3-of-4 from range with three steals and a +8 rating. But more than anything, he looked like a willing contributor, not passing off the looks he’s supposed to take and playing solid defence on a plethora of 76ers guards, from the lightning-quick Tyrese Maxey to the uber-athletic VJ Edgecombe.
Walter was the Raptors’ first substitution of the game, entering midway through the opening frame for Barnes and matching up with Maxey. He made an immediate impact, notching two steals and sinking his first triple since Nov. 11 after Ingram found him open off a double team.
He then sank two more threes as part of the Raptors’ massive third-quarter surge, spotting up in the corner off a gorgeous Sandro Mamukelashvili drive-and-kick and draining another catch-and-shoot look over Trendon Watford from the wing.
For the first time this season, it looked like Walter had a role, and if he can live up to his billing as a solid team defender and serviceable point-of-attack partner with Jamal Shead, well, it never hurts to have another name in the rolodex.
Past Poeltl, Barrett experiments pay off
Though the last few Raptors seasons have been unsuccessful on paper, the theories have been put into practice for this year’s squad.
With Barnes and Quickley out for much of last season, the ball-handling onus fell on the shoulders of RJ Barrett, who dished out a career-high 6.3 assists. It was expected that the load would diminish this year with the team back healthy and Jamal Shead carrying the load for the secondary unit, but the strides Barrett made as a table-setter are paying off in smaller sample sizes this season.
In the opening minutes, Barrett got the ball in transition and swung a no-look pass to a cutting Poeltl, who finished a wide-open layup. Then, later in the frame, he used his strength to attack the lane and found an open Ingram in the dunker spot for a layup. They were the kinds of plays that Barrett, who built himself up as a scorer through the first five years of his career, managed to hone in his first full year as a Raptor and can chip in when needed now.
Additionally, when the Raptors reacquired Poeltl in 2023, there was hope he could also find another gear as a high-post operator, using screens and handoffs to create space and make up for his lack of shooting.
Though his assist numbers haven’t taken a huge turn (1.7 per game this season), he’s finding ways to play within the offence that don’t solely entail play finishing.
Coming into Wednesday, the Austrian big man led the league in screen assists per game with 4.9, contributing massively to a Raptors offence that sits in the 96th percentile in scoring off screens (1.22 points per possession with a 61.9 effective field goal percentage).
He did more of that against the 76ers, setting two screens for Quickley with just over a minute to go, giving the elusive shooter enough space to sink the dagger triple.
When he was asked to hold the ball at the top of the key and set up the Raptors’ cutters and off-ball movers, he did a solid job, finding Ingram midway through the fourth after he leaked into the paint or finding Quickley in the corner in the third for an open triple.
The Raptors, by innovation or by necessity, have been a team willing to experiment. The choices made in years past have created the team they have today. Giannis Antetokounmpo was right: there’s no failure in sports, only steps to success.
