TORONTO — There can be a dissonance between how Brandon Ingram plays and how Toronto Raptors head coach Darko Rajaković says he wants his team to play. Ingram can hold on to the ball and overdribble, while the coach promotes quick decision-making and ball movement.

The reality in the NBA is you want your team to be as versatile as possible. Sometimes, when you’re on a back-to-back, or in the doldrums of the season or the 3s just aren’t falling, you want a guy who can just, for the lack of a better term, go to work.

And so, on Monday night, Brandon Ingram scored 37 points — on 30 field-goal attempts.

BUCKET + THE FOUL FOR BI 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/0nsiLEfiuZ

— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) November 25, 2025

“I was actually just looking at this, saying, ‘Damn, I took 30 shots?’ But I didn’t feel it,” Ingram said after the Raptors’ 110-99 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers, their eighth win in a row, their longest win streak since winning the same number in early 2022. “Fifty percent (from the field). Whatever the team needs on a nightly basis, I’m willing to do it.”

That bit about not feeling it? That’s the best news for the Raptors. Ingram scored 37 points, the most he scored since Feb. 5, 2024, when the Raptors were his victims in New Orleans on a 41-point evening. That one was efficient, as Ingram finished his work in three quarters. This one wasn’t. But Ingram being able to carry such an old-school offensive load this early in the season after missing the last four months of last season with an ankle injury is a win in itself.

In the middle of a four-games-in-six-nights stretch, the Raptors needed Ingram’s points, regardless of the attendant style points. Starter RJ Barrett was out of the lineup with a knee sprain, although he is considered day-to-day. Ingram’s teammates shot just 5-of-25 from 3. The machine was not humming.

Sure, this was not the prettiest offensive effort by the Raptors. But it’s a win, and likely one the Raptors wouldn’t have been able to pull out without Ingram in years past.

“I think there is no danger (of giving him the ball too much). I think just watching him work, (we need to be) ready to go play defence on the other side,” Raptors guard Jamal Shead said. “I think when he gets going like that, he’s proven it time and time again, you know, not just this year, but over his whole career … give him the ball, he’s not going to just shoot it every time. He’ll make the right play. But tonight they didn’t go double.”

Which isn’t to say the Raptors have struck the perfect balance so far. Ingram’s usage percentage is down from his peak in New Orleans, but the ball — and crucially, the player movement — can sometimes stop when he steers the offence. Ingram mentioned that his timing and feel for the game isn’t quite where he’d like it, and some of that is on him. He’s posted 20 assists and 20 turnovers in the last five games.

Some of it, though, requires more activity away from the ball.

“He’s a player, especially when he gets going, we as a team recognize that. We need that,” Rajaković said. “It’s good for us. At the same time, we’ve got to stay inside our principles and make good decisions, play with ball movement, finding him through that style of play as well.”

That slowed at times, especially in the fourth quarter. Ingram bailed the Raptors out with a silky sidestep 3 on a possession that was going nowhere, and those are the possessions the Raptors want to avoid. Even when Ingram takes up residence in the midrange, they want him to have the shot clock on his side in case the defence offers up a surprise.

BI3 👌 pic.twitter.com/iU9qNnkpIY

— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) November 25, 2025

However, these things take time. The Raptors have among the best half-court offences in the league so far, and part of that is because they have a guy who can go off from the midrange. Ingram came into the Cavaliers game shooting 51.7 percent from between 10 feet and the 3-point range. The Raptors haven’t had anybody in that stratosphere since Kawhi Leonard’s lone, memorable year in Toronto.

No, Ingram is not as good as that version of Leonard. Just by virtue of soaking up those possessions, though, he is freeing up Scottie Barnes to make play after play in transition and down the stretch. Barnes had 18 points, 11 rebounds and six assists on Monday, taking less than half the attempts from the field as Ingram. Barnes is playing the best all-around basketball of his career, and Ingram’s presence is not a coincidence.

Ingram isn’t merely chucking up shots, either. He grabbed seven rebounds, all of them defensive, helping make the Cavaliers a non-factor on the offensive glass.

“That was one of the things that I wanted to do with them last year,” Ingram said. “Seeing how hard they worked on the defensive end, I wanted to fit right in, and make sure my defensive pressure was the same, that I was bringing my ability to the game, too: rebounding the basketball, being able to see stuff off the ball and continue to work on my on-ball defence.”

For now, Ingram is fitting in well enough, and that has taken the Raptors to heights they haven’t seen in a few years. Give it a few months, and the calculus for this team’s potential might change.