The Toronto Raptors have been remarkably healthy for most of the 2025-26 season, but things are taking a turn at a most sub-optimal time. With less than two weeks remaining in the regular season, injuries are finally mounting.

“Did I miss anybody? I feel like PR for a hospital,” Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic quipped before Sunday’s blowout win over the Orlando Magic after describing the status of a handful of his players.

Against a totally lost Magic team, Toronto didn’t seem to miss all-star and scoring leader Brandon Ingram, starting point guard Immanuel Quickley, rookie star Collin Murray-Boyles or sharp-shooter Jamison Battle all that much. While that might be the case in two of their four games this week (against woeful Sacramento at home Wednesday and at Memphis Friday) if the injury list continues to be large, they could badly use some reinforcements against East-leading Detroit in Michigan on Tuesday and against second seed Boston in Beantown on Sunday.

First, the good news on that front: RJ Barrett was listed Monday as probable after battling through shoulder soreness to score a game-high 24 against Orlando. Ingram (heel inflammation) and Murray-Boyles (back spasms) were listed as questionable for the second game in a row and could return for some part of the upcoming back-to-back. Battle will be out Tuesday again with an illness and the biggest concern is Quickley will miss his fifth game in a row.

“It sucks when players don’t play, especially like CMB and BI,” Sandro Mamukelashvili told reporters after the game Sunday.

“CMB’s a defensive menace. And BI, he’s our bucket getter. So I feel like it was more of like a message to everybody else that everybody has to step up. It will be more of an up and down game, and we just got to come ready. Sometimes BI is gonna carry us. Sometimes we got to come out here, step up and play our game,” he said.

SILVER LININGS

While Toronto certainly misses its best outside shooter in Quickley and best mid-range shooter and top overall scorer in Ingram, the offence has fared OK without them. With Scottie Barnes shifting to point guard the pace has increases significantly and Toronto actually leads the NBA in assist rate over the last four games (though Sunday’s laugher skews the small sample size quite a bit). They’ve also shot the ball surprisingly well without Quickley.

As Mamukelashvili said after the Magic beatdown: “We came out there, played hard, played quick, fast, just moved the ball and it worked out.”

The absences also allowed seldom-used players like Canadian A.J. Lawson and Gradey Dick to play and they took advantage. Lawson was tremendous off the bench for the short-handed Raptors, Dick, somewhat surprisingly, was the first reserve called on by Rajakovic and delivered his best game in weeks and even Jamal Shead, who got the start, stepped up with a strong double-double.

Can the depleted bench (and starting group) do it against better competition Tuesday and perhaps Sunday if the reinforcements haven’t arrived by then? Rajakovic probably hopes he won’t have to find out.

STATE OF THE EAST

Entering Monday The Eastern Conference continued to be a bit muddled. Detroit, Boston, New York and Cleveland could well finish in that order, comprising the Top 4 seeds, each gaining homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs, but things are less clear beyond them.

Toronto’s 2-0 weekend kept the Raptors in fifth place, Atlanta went 1-1 to staty in sixth, Philadelphia won its only game and is seventh, Orlando got clobbered in its lone game but stayed half a game ahead of both Miami and Charlotte because both the Heat and Hornets went 0-2.

Philadelphia was at Miami Monday night in a key one for both, while Atlanta hosting Boston also projected as potentially consequential.

Atlanta and Charlotte have the two toughest remaining schedules of the six teams, Toronto and Miami the easiest, according to Tankathon.