Newest Raptors have no interest in moral victories
When the Toronto Raptors made their blockbuster trade on December 30 with the New York Knicks, it signalled a new direction for a team that was seemingly stuck in the mud.
With a record of 12-19 at the time of the trade, bringing RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley as part of a five-player deal was supposed to shake up a roster widely felt to be redundant, with a performance so far this year that could only be classified as mediocre at best.
Toronto won three of their first four games with Quickley and Barrett, and seemed to be ushering in a new era of basketball with the team.
But as quick as the good vibes seemed to come back to the team, they might have vanished once again — at least for the time being.
Suddenly, the Raptors now find themselves losers of their last four games and still a game and a half back of the 10th seed in the Eastern Conference for the final play-in spot.
While the conversation around the team may have shifted, the overall performance of the roster is still in need of a few tweaks.
And sure, they might not be quite at full strength: starting centre Jakob Poeltl is injured indefinitely due to an ankle issue, while Gary Trent Jr. missed last night’s game with an illness.
Their most recent loss came Monday night against the Boston Celtics, who currently possess the NBA’s top record at 31-9. Toronto kept the game close in the fourth quarter, making it a two-possession game in the final two minutes, but ultimately fell by a 105-96 score.
Despite holding a lead as high as seven midway through the third quarter, it was yet another loss in a row for the Raptors. Officially one game away from being halfway through the season, Toronto remains without three consecutive wins in a row this year.
“We’re fighting, for sure,” said Barrett postgame. “We’re fighting, we’re playing hard. We’re doing the things we’re supposed to do day by day.”
But simply being in a game doesn’t exactly register in the standings the same way adding one to the win column does.
“We don’t really want a pat on our backs for hanging around,” Quickley said. “I think we’ve got to try to continue to make strides each and every day to make that next step to get these wins… we’ve been hanging around with every team and that’s not what we want to be known for. We want to be known for winning.”
It remains to be foreseen if Toronto’s return to be known as a winning franchise will come in the second half of this season, or will be more of a long-term project.
In any case, the Raptors return to action Wednesday night when they host the Miami Heat at 4:30 pm PT/7:30 pm ET.
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