Welcome to the third edition of Raptors Roundup! In this one we’re going to try a slightly different format, one that feels like a more natural flow of the events of the week rather than sectioned off, jumbling up the timeline. All the same elements — game summaries, news, stats and Raptor of the Week — will still be present, just in an order I think makes more sense.
The Raptors entered the week on a seven game win streak, but continuing it wouldn’t be easy, as the team announced that RJ Barrett — the team’s second leading scorer — would be out for a minimum of one week with a knee sprain, an injury suffered against the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday.
The 25-year-old wing appeared to sustain a non-contact injury after throwing down a fast break dunk in the third quarter against the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday. He limped down the floor going the other way not involving himself in the play and immediately exited to the locker room at the next stoppage.
So the Raptors headed into their third and final meeting of the season with the former Eastern Conference finalists without Barrett. Toronto had won the previous two matchups, though had not yet faced a fully healthy Cavaliers squad and wouldn’t get the chance in this one either. Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley were the only active starters for Cleveland. So even without Barrett, the Raptors had a great shot at extending their win streak to eight, and finishing the season sweep of the Cavaliers barely a month into the season.
The game was a back and forth affair, the Raptors attacked the 2025 Defensive Player of the Year, Evan Mobley relentlessly. It always seems like Scottie Barnes always has a little extra juice for the matchups with the players drafted ahead of him.
The dismantling, the deindustrialization of Mobley started from the outset. Scottie squared his body up in the paint and easily scored on him. With the game tied at 8-8, Scottie walled up Mobley, making it hard for him to drive. That allowed Ja’Kobe Walter (who had his first start of the season) to come help and Mobley simply toppled over … like Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. Then, Scottie easily shot over the DPOY’s 6-foot-11 frame.
- Teru Ikeda – Raptors dismantle Cavs at home
It was an all-around team effort in the first half for the Raptors, Immanuel Quickley was well on his way to a triple-double at the break, Barnes not far behind either, Sandro Mamukelashvili was once again a spark plug off the bench, scoring 10 points for the Raptors. And oh yeah… Brandon Ingram had 17 points at halftime, knocking down two threes and just ripping the Cavaliers apart in ways that only Ingram can.
Stat #1: Brandon Ingram is shooting 49.1% on pull up jumpshots, behind only Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for the highest efficiency out of all players who have shot at least 100 pull up attempts.
The Cavaliers on the other hand, relied on their role-players in the first half. Specifically Nae’Qwan Tomlin, who knocked down two threes en route to 10 first half points. The Raptors went into halftime with a 57-52 lead after holding the Cavaliers to a 22-point second quarter.
Ja’Kobe Walter made his first start, and did an excellent job providing the starting lineup with point of attack defense. He defended Donovan Mitchell well, and came up with a few timely steals leading to some easy buckets.
The second half, especially the fourth quarter, were defined by the Raptors defense. Though Mitchell showed signs of life in the fourth, hitting two threes in a 30-second span to cut the lead to six with less than 5 minutes, that was the most damage he did all night.
In fact, that was the last bit of offense the sputtering Cavalier offense could muster, as they wouldn’t score again. A three from Ingram, free throws from Jamal Shead and a standing floater from Barnes would add some padding for the Raptors, but they wouldn’t need it as they went on to defeat Cleveland, holding the Cavaliers — who average 119 points per game — to just 99 points.
In between the Cavaliers and Pacers game, the Raptors received a nice bit of praise from former NBA head coach Stan Van Gundy while he made a guest appearance on the Zach Lowe Show. A podcast that has shown plenty of love to the Raptors of late, calling Darko Rajakovic a ‘coach of the year candidate’ and Sandro Mamukelashvili ‘the best value free agency signing of the entire offseason‘. Van Gundy had many good things to say about the Raptors hot start, the biggest one being:
I’d be shocked, the way things are going now, if they’re not in the playoffs in the East.
- Stan Van Gundy – Via the Zach Lowe Show: Six Big Questions With Stan Van Gundy
Riding an eight game win streak, and receiving more and more love from the national NBA media landscape the Raptors headed into their final NBA Cup game against the Indiana Pacers. Looking to continue the unfathomable start to the season by clinching home court advantage for the NBA Cup quarterfinals. It would take a Raptors win and a Bucks loss to do it, which on any normal night would be cause for celebration, but on this particular night, would ensure the Raptors host a NBA Cup quarterfinals game at Scotiabank Arena.
The opening frame against Indiana was the first time this week where the absence of RJ Barrett was really felt. The Raptors opened the game with only 21 points, and fell behind the Pacers by four points after yet another role player decided they were going to shoot the skin off the ball. The culprit this time? Jarace Walker, who hit three of his four three point attempts in the opening quarter, this happened off a game where he hit five of six three pointers against the Detroit Pistons, so for a guy who’s making 32% of his threes this season, that’s some pretty hot shooting.
While Zulfi wrote about the Raptors finding value in slowing things down this week, I’m certain he was referring to the pace of play, and not the scoring, which the Raptors seemed to slow down considerably in this one.
The opening stretch of the second quarter had a different kind of shortcomings. The transition shortcomings. It’s true that the Raptors are the NBA’s best offense when it comes to getting into transition, but they’re also one of the worst at finishing in transition.
Nearly halfway through the second quarter, and they were spending about a quarter of their plays in transition, and only scoring .25 points per possession. For reference, they were scoring .74 ppp in the halfcourt which would place them last by a huge amount in the NBA. .25 points per possession in transition is almost hard to do. That’s a basket 1 out of 8 tries. Remember when everyone was making fun of Celtics media for getting slapped up by the Celtics coaching staff? Their transition points per possession were probably close to .25.
Heading into halftime, it was a miracle that the Raptors were leading 50-49 considering the lack of offensive gusto from everyone not named Scottie Barnes, who had 16 points at halftime.
To start the second half, Rajakovic moved Walter back into the starting lineup after inexplicably deciding to start Collin Murray-Boyles, who provided no value to a starting group already featuring sub-par shooting.
That change alone made a massive difference for the Raptors, as they sparked a 10-0 run early in the third, with Walter contributing directly to eight of those ten points, hitting two threes and stealing the ball from Pascal Siakam, leading to a putback dunk for Ingram.
Toronto did a good job containing Siakam and Nembhard in the second half, who had done most of the heavy lifting in the first. The Pacers relied on Bennedict Mathurin and T.J. McConnell to keep things close in the second and they did a good job, giving the Pacers a chance to win it with 15 seconds remaining. I’ll let Teru tell you what went down in those final possessions:
Former Raptor Pascal Siakam got blocked by his good friend Jakob Poeltl as the latter came to help. Raps regained possession with the game tied at 95. As the clock ran out, Ingram went one-on-one against Spicy P.
The two have drawn many comps before. Both are mid-range assassins, and it was the present versus the past. Ingram took two dribbles on the same side of the court that his girlfriend Glorilla watched from, and scored over top of Siakam to put the Raps up 97-95. If life imitates art, BI’s end-of-game demeanour matched the bravado and swagger of her crunk-infused track, “Yeah Glo!”
The Scotiabank crowd erupted further as Bennedict Mathurin missed the 3-point heave on the other end.
The Raptors had done it, they had won every single one of their NBA Cup games, extended their win streak to nine (tied for the third longest in Raptors history) and importantly, the Bucks had lost to the Miami Heat, meaning Toronto would play host in the Cup quarterfinals with the opponent still to be determined.
Stat #2: In the previous two years of the NBA Cup, Toronto finished group play with a 1-3 record.
The game showcased excellent coaching from both teams, with Pacers’ head coach Rick Carlisle doing an excellent job of gunking up everything the Raptors liked to do and Rajakovic making the necessary adjustments after the slow start and Gradey Dick taking a hard fall and missing the rest of the game due to concussion protocol. After the game Rajakovic spoke about Dick’s injury, stating:
Gradey is feeling fine. We just kept him out of precaution … we did not want to risk anything, but he’s feeling fine. I will update you guys more when we find out more.
- Darko Rajakovic – Post game vs. Pacers | November 26, 2025
This brings us to Saturday night, where the Raptors headed to Charlotte to face the Hornets for the second time this season, the previous matchup coming down to a couple of clutch plays — A Barrett cut off Ingram being doubled to take the lead, then two game-saving blocks from Ingram and Barnes — to win it.
The hope for this one was that the Raptors would be able to get a big lead early so they could sneak some extra rest for the starters, ensuring they’re ready for the next day’s matchup with the New York Knicks. And it looked like that may be the case as they rattled off a 15-2 start, making their first six shots and stopping everything the Hornets were trying to do. But as is well known, the Raptors and Hornets don’t play in easy, normal games.
Over the course of the first half the lead slowly dwindled, with Collin Sexton, Moussa Diabate, and Kon Knueppel taking over as the Hornets pulled within six at halftime. For Toronto it was the trio of Ingram, Quickley and Barnes who led the way, combining to score 39 of the Raptors 58 points and assisting on a great deal of the rest.
In the third quarter, it was more of Barnes and Ingram, who have carried a lot of the load offensively in this stretch without Barrett. They combined for 14 in the third, and with a little bit of help from Walter and Mamukelashvili, took a seven point lead into the fourth.
The fourth quarter and (spoiler alert) overtime was the epitome of the Barrett-less Toronto Raptors. Down the stretch of the game the ball constantly fell into Ingram’s lap with little time remaining on the shot clock and though he has been excellent thus far into the season, he isn’t super-human. Shots weren’t falling, and the Raptors went five minutes of the fourth quarter scoreless. Despite that fact, the Raptors still had a chance to put it away at the end of the game:
A bashing Bridges’ crash on a Knueppel miss sent the Hornets to the line to tie the game with 18 seconds left. He split the pair. Barnes was fouled in the open court with a chance to outperform Bridges at the line. He was on the mark with both to put the Raptors up 3 with 12.6 to go.
It was Knueppel, buried deep in the corner with Ingram on him, who pumped, rose, and tied the game up. Hand down, man down.
Barnes had brought the Raptors here. Ingram was fresh off a game winner. Where would the ball go?
It went to Ingram, who pulled up over James and a late doubling Bridges, but he got back rim. On to overtime.
Overtime was not a pretty sight, the Raptors still couldn’t get shots to fall and Miles Bridges scored 10 points to put them away. In the fourth quarter and overtime the Raptors scored only 24 points, truly ugly offense. If there is one thing that has been clear over this stretch of Raptors’ games it’s this: the Raptors need what Barrett provides them.
Stat #3: The Raptors have played in 10 ‘clutch’ games this season, in which they have a 70% win rate (tied for 5th in the league), last season, the team played 32 ‘clutch’ games and had a 31% win rate (29th in the league).
Nonetheless, while the Raptors may have lost their win streak, they still had a chance to finish the week 3-1 as I predicted in last week’s Raptors Roundup. This one would be tough though, taking on the New York Knicks, last year’s other Eastern Conference finalists. And as it turned out, this game would also be a preview of December 9th’s NBA Cup quarterfinals:
After the Orlando Magic (4-0 in Cup play) beat the Detroit Pistons in both teams’ final NBA Cup Group Round game, the Magic stole the top spot from the Toronto Raptors (4-0 in Cup play) in the East. Therefore, the Raptors finished second and are now set to take on the New York Knicks (3-1 in Cup play) in the first knockout game of the NBA Cup. It will take place on Dec. 9 at 8:30 pm EST in Toronto.
This game took place without two key components of a trade that took place nearly two years ago, Barrett did not suit up for the Raptors, nor did OG Anunoby suit up for the New York Knicks. The one remaining piece of that trade, Immanuel Quickley tried to will the Raptors to a win. He finished with a team-high 19 points and 8 assists, but the Raptors were simply outmatched without the firepower of Barrett and the interior presence of Jakob Poeltl.
As seems to be the trend this season, it was once again a role player who got off to a hot shooting start. This time around, Miles McBride hit four threes in the opening frame, and rocketed the Knicks into a 41-22 lead heading to the second quarter.
This was truly a tale of two quarters, as in the second quarter the Raptors turned off the taps of the Knicks offense, allowing only 18 points in the second quarter and scoring 30 themselves:
Shooting, as has often been the differentiator in this modern NBA, gave the Raptors a look back at the game. Barnes hit a 3-pointer, then another, then another. Then Quickley drilled one on the move. And Barnes threw a dime for a layup in transition, pulling Toronto back within 10.
Murray-Boyles’ defence as a roamer really let Toronto cut off drives further from the rim, which meant the defence didn’t have to collapse as aggressively, which meant the Knicks had far fewer open looks from distance. That cut the faucet off at the knees. Ingram stopped trying to force looks in the midrange and used his ability to hang out in the middle of the floor without becoming entangled to create easy looks for teammates. It was Murray-Boyles, again, who was Johnny-on-the-spot ambling between the dunker spots for the layup. Ingram finally made a shot. Quickley drove to assist a dunk — exceptional point guardery — for Barnes to end the half.
It’s not like Toronto could just roar into the lead and leave the Knicks in the dust. They’re far, far too good for that. But the Raptors could make a game of it.
Somehow, some way, the Raptors were only down 7 in what initally was looking to be an absolute decimation by the New York Knickerbockers. In the second half, Quickley turned things up, not wanting to lose to his former team. He hit a flurry of three pointers, but unfortunately the Raptors couldn’t overcome the size disadvantage, Mitchell Robinson had 15 rebounds!
Stat #4: In games without Poeltl, the Raptors are averaging 38.2 rebounds per game, which would be the worst in the league.
Ingram struggled greatly in this one, partly because of Mikal Bridges’ defense and partly because the law of averages exists. Up to this point he had been shooting a blistering hot rate on pull up jump shots, with the degree of difficulty in his shot diet it was a matter of time before things cooled off.
A bright spot in this one was the Murray-Boyles, who had 8 rebounds (5 of which were offensive) and his defense made things a little more difficult for the Knicks for a short period of time. I think this excerpt from Louis’ recap sums up the loss:
There have been some truly awful losses in the history of this franchise. Heck, there has been a pretty bad one already this season. This wasn’t that. Barnes was exceptional, Quickley had fantastic moments, and Murray-Boyles had one of the best games of his young career. There is proof of concept for this team, a blueprint for winning. But over the course of the exceptional month of November, the team has slowly been starting to cut the corners when it comes to those guidelines. If anything, back-to-back losses is a reminder that Toronto knows how to win, but it isn’t good enough to skirt around what matters. It can be a good thing in the long run. But Toronto had a chance to respond to the Hornets’ loss, and it failed to do so. It had a chance to respond to an opponent finally hitting a whack of long bombs, and in the long run it failed to do that, too.
This game highlights the importance of watching the games and not just box scores, if you would have turned it off after the first quarter when the Raptors were down 19 and then checked the score the next morning, seeing they lost by 22 you would assume it was never close. In reality, the Raptors pulled close, they tried and they learned, yeah they lost, but after these last two games the team has a much clearer idea of their strengths and their limitations. And that’s why we play the games!
What started out looking like another potential undefeated week in which the Raptors extended their win streak to 11 turned quickly to a 2-2 affair. Ultimately, if you would have told me by the 1/4 mark of the NBA season that the Raptors would be 14-7 and 3rd in the Eastern Conference I would be elated. Honestly, even after these two losses I still am, Raptors basketball means something again, I wake up on gamedays looking forward to seeing how it’ll turn out. Sure, there are flaws, but watching a team compete night in and night out is an incredible feeling.
Stat #5: This tweet. Get well soon RJ. The offense needs you.
That brings us to this week’s Raptor of the Week. This one was really a two-man race all week long between Barnes and Ingram (though I did think about giving it to Barrett based on the above tweet). After Ingram’s 37 point performance against the Cavs, it was his to lose. Then the next game, he hit the game winner against the Indiana Pacers, and I thought for sure he had sealed it up. But the entire time, Barnes was lurking in the background, sneakily putting together a string of big games. Until you go back and look at the stats you don’t even realize the week that he had (alongside Ingram’s for reference):
Brandon Ingram: 24.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 1.1 stocks on 44/36/53 splits
Scottie Barnes: 22.5 points, 9.5 rebounds, 4.8 assists, and 2.0 stocks on 53/42/96 splits
He was, as he always is, the oars that move the boat. Which is why, after a tie from the RR contributors vote, I had to break it in favour of Barnes. The Raptors aren’t in the place they are this season without him, and throughout the entire week he had high level impact. With the key piece being that his impact sustained throughout the week.
In the last two games, Ingram really struggled to get his shot to fall. It’s not entirely his fault as the team leaned on him heavily for offense and forced him into some tough situations, but still, he only scored 2 extra points per game than Barnes this week on much worse efficiency and without nearly the same defensive impact. Ingram, the explosion against Cleveland was incredible to watch and the game-winner against Indiana was beautiful, but I have to give the Raptor of the Week to Scottie Barnes.
Stat #6: Scottie Barnes is currently second in total stocks (steals + blocks) this season, with 64 total across 21 games.
Looking ahead
Tuesday, December 2nd – Trail Blazers @ Raptors | 7:30pm on TSN
Thursday, December 4th – Lakers @ Raptors | 7:30pm on Sportsnet
Friday, December 5th – Hornets @ Raptors | 7:30pm on TSN
Sunday, December 7th – Celtics @ Raptors | 3:30pm on Sportsnet
Record prediction: 2-2
That’s it for another week of Raptors Roundup, thank you for reading and let me know if you prefer this format or the old one! Happy Monday, let’s have a wonderful week!
