TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors have won some games easily over their month-long heater, but on Sunday night they won defying the higher power of sport.
How good are the Raptors going right now?
They messed with a streak, and it didn’t come back to bite them.
Gunning for a seventh straight win and their 11th in their past 12, the Raptors voluntarily sat down centre Jakob Poeltl (back injury management), altering their starting lineup for the first time since they lost on the road in Philadelphia back on Nov. 8.
They got away with it as they outlasted the visiting Brooklyn Nets 119-109 in a game that was within two possessions for nearly the entire second half. The Raptors put their surgical gowns on for the final four minutes, got clinical, and won going away, settling things with a 15-5 run after the Nets had tied the game.
That they even had that opportunity was due in large part due to another big bench contribution, albeit from a new source. This time, it was second-year wing Ja’Kobe Walter doing his best Jamison Battle impression — the Raptors’ hot run started when the little-used marksman hit six threes on six attempts in the second half against Cleveland back on Oct. 31. Walter popped off for a season-high 16 points while shooting six-of-seven from the floor, including four-of-five from three.
He hit a pair in the space of two minutes late in the third quarter to bracket a dunk on a feed from Gradey Dick (12 points, three assists, two steals) that kept an early Nets surge at bay on a night when the Raptors were short-handed and not in top form. Already missing Poeltl, the Raptors lost starting wing RJ Barrett — who had 16 points on four-of-eight shooting, along with two steals — in the third quarter after he sprained his right knee on an uncontested dunk. The remaining starters — Scottie Barnes, Brandon Ingram and Immanuel Quickley — started the fourth quarter shooting nine-of-32 combined.
Somehow the Raptors led 87-82, but it seemed flimsy.
It only got more tense when Tyrese Martin — who finished with a team-leading 26 points, including five threes — tied the game with 9:15 left. The Nets never managed to take the lead, but were not behind by more more than two over the next five minutes.
But the balance s hifted when Quickley returned to the floor — he’d been sitting with five fouls —and shared the backcourt with Jamal Shead, Barnes, Ingram and Sandro Mamukelashvili, who got the start in place of Poeltl.
After a pair of Shead free throws, the second-year guard engineered a quick catch-and-shoot three for Quickley on the first possession after he checked in to put the Raptors up by five. On the next possession, the ball went to Ingram (14 points, six rebounds, four assists and two steals) in the mid-post, and when the double-team came it was a cross-court pass to find Quickley for another open three.
Suddenly the game wasn’t so close.
“Those last four minutes, that’s winning time,” said Quickley (13 points, four assists), adding that it was no coincidence that Ingram was able to find him open on the triple that put the Raptors up eight with 2:22 to play. “When I used to play in New York, Julius [Randle, now with the Timberwolves] used to get a lot of the doubles, so I kind of got a feel for where the soft spots are on the double teams and stuff like that, but also, we work on it.
“Me and BI spent some time [Saturday] on when he’s getting doubled and where he wants me in it and where I feel comfortable.”
Quickley finished three-of-six from three after starting the game one-of-four. Quickley is now shooting 43.8 per cent from three since the Raptors started rolling, impressive given he started the season shooting two-of-18.
Another resurgent Raptor is Walter, who has struggled — like several of the team’s younger players — to get comfortable playing a more varied dose of minutes in a deeper and healthier rotation than in his rookie season.
After pressing offensively, he’s settled into a groove. He’s made eight of his last 10 threes to pull his overall percentage up to 43.8 per cent, after it was languishing under 30 per cent for long stretches.
“It’s always a good day when you’re making shots,” Walter said. “It just comes with confidence and trust in your work.”
There’s more to it than that. Part of the challenge of getting on the floor as a young player when you’re shooting poorly is to not allow the missed shots to bleed into other parts of the game. Walter’s game started picking up when he got a larger-than-usual chunk of minutes last Wednesday against Philadelphia. That night, coach Darko Rajakovic credited him for his defensive presence against the Sixers’ young guards.
“Well, goes back to work,” said Rajakovic after Sunday’s win. “He put an extremely huge amount of work over the course of summer and pre-season, and he’s the guy that usually weekly, he’s one of the guys taking the most shots in our gym.
“So, he’s really committed to develop in that part of his game. And seeing him being confident out there and taking good shots, not forcing anything that was … really helpful. For a young player that wants to prove himself, it’s very important to take good shots. I thought that he did really good job tonight.”
-
-
The Raptors Show
Sportsnet’s Blake Murphy and two-time NBA champion Matt Bonner cover all things Raptors and the NBA. Airing every weekday live on Sportsnet 590 The FAN from 11 a.m.-noon ET.
He had plenty of company. Walter was one of eight Raptors to score in double figures. Barnes shook off a slow start to finish with 17 points, seven rebounds, four assists, two steals and four blocked shots. He got the key defensive assignment on Nets leading score Michael Porter Jr. down the stretch. Shead had nine assists off the bench. Mamukelashvili had 12 points, including his own big late three to seal the win in his first start as a Raptor and his first of any kind since the end of the 2023-24 season.
The Raptors needed all of it to overcome Poeltl’s planned absence and Barrett’s injury. They will try to extend their longest winning streak in four years on Monday night against visiting Cleveland (Sportsnet, 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT).
Grange for three
Injury update
Barrett will have further medical imaging on Monday.
Meanwhile, the decision to hold out Poeltl was made with the Raptors playing three games in four nights, including this back-to-back. The Raptors elected to hold out Poeltl to avoid undo strain on his back, which kept him out for four games earlier this season and saw him struggle in some other starts.
“For now. It’s situational,” said Rajakovic when asked if Poeltl would automatically be held out from one half of back-to-back sets. “… We’re evaluating after every game and every week to see where he’s at. As he’s progressing, I can see him playing in back-to-backs without a problem.”
Poeltl’s return to health after a slow start has coincided with the Raptors playing their best basketball
“He helps us in so many ways that you can see in the box score. But there’s a lot of stuff he’s doing that you cannot see on the paper … but it’s an opportunity for other guys to step in and help us out tonight,” Rajakovic said before the game.
Like your mom told you
Over the past couple of days, Rajakovic has added wellness guru to his head-coaching title, emphasizing the importance of proper sleep in heath and recovery.
He sounded like a podcaster on Friday, saying: “If somebody would offer you a pill that can help your brain recover, that can help boost your energy, that can help with your processing, reaction time and all of that, would you take that pill? It’s a hundred per cent proven and healthy. Would you take that pill? You’d take two? That pill is called sleep. … And I think people are not taking it seriously enough how important sleep is and all the benefits that sleep is bringing.”
He doubled down on it at practice on Saturday, noting that one of the challenges of the NBA schedule is finding proper rest. But does he follow his own advice? A noted coffee aficionado, he usually an espresso at 6 p.m., 90 minutes before tip for many weeknight games — not ideal.
And then there’s Ingram, who takes four-hour naps on game days as part of his routine. Sleeping is not his issue.
“Y’all see how he looks half the time?” said Shead of his veteran teammate. “He literally is always sleep(ing) until he’s putting the ball in the basket … He’s just really good at basketball.”
Sing it loud
The Raptors have taken to having the singer go silent early in the Canadian anthem to encourage the crowd at Scotiabank Arena to sing in unison — something that might have happened in the playoffs in previous years, but not as a regular-season routine. It’s picked up momentum game by game, as the crowd is going a decent job of singing as a choir.
Some of the Raptors have been joining lately — Shead, in particular. The Raptors guard was picked up singing along while wearing a microphone for Sportsnet on the broadcast Friday, encouraging his teammates to the same.
“I’ve always sung the anthems, even in college, and then, being here, learning, getting to learn a new one. I think it’s pretty cool,” he said. “Like, it’s basically the complete opposite of the U.S. anthem. So, it’s cool knowing both, and then, you know, I’m basically half Canadian now, so I get to show my Canadian citizenship side.”
