TORONTO \u2014 Jakob Poeltl\u2019s return didn\u2019t exactly go to plan.<\/p>\n
The Austrian big man played his first game Wednesday after missing 24 with nagging back pain against the Detroit Pistons, but his Toronto Raptors struggled in a 113-95 loss against the Eastern Conference leaders.<\/p>\n
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Toronto\u2019s loss marked its seventh in as many attempts against the top three seeds in the East, also including the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks.<\/p>\n
The Raptors are also now 4-13 against the 10 best teams in the league overall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they just outworked and outclassed us a little bit today,\u201d Poeltl said. \u201cThey played really physical, they rotated really aggressively on defence and at times we played really well against it, but we just couldn\u2019t knock down open shots. At times, it looked pretty bad and we turned the ball over or we got stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Detroit, which has just 13 losses on the season, became the first team in the conference to hit the 40-win mark. The Raptors remained fifth, dropping to 32-23.<\/p>\n
Poeltl\u2019s first shift partly portended the night to come. He scored the Raptors\u2019 first basket of the game on a pick-and-roll with RJ Barrett, but missed a lefty layup attempt soon after.<\/p>\n
On the defensive end, he matched up with regular backup Paul Reed and allowed him to score 11 of Detroit’s first 14 points. Reed finished with 22 points and five rebounds.<\/p>\n
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Poeltl was much more active in the second half, picking up four points and three rebounds in the first two minutes. He finished with nine points and six rebounds, playing in roughly five-minute shifts at the beginning of each quarter.<\/p>\n
The Austrian said his return \u201cfelt pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously not perfect. Still trying to find a little bit of a rhythm, trying to get my lungs back, trying to find myself again without offence and stuff like that, but overall the back felt good, so I\u2019m happy about that,\u201d Poeltl said.<\/p>\n
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The 30-year-old was averaging 9.7 points and 7.7 rebounds per game in 21 contests before Wednesday\u2019s action, missing time on and off because of his back.<\/p>\n
His return showed there may still be a long way to go before he is firing on all cylinders once again.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was encouraging that he was finally able to come back and play 20 minutes like we planned for him. And it was good to see that he did not have restrictions on the court,\u201d Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI always say there is a return to play, and there is return to performance. So it was really good to see him on the court now before the all-star (break) and he can continue to build on this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reed, a career reserve, was only starting because fellow big men Isaiah Stewart and Jalen Duren began serving seven- and two-game suspensions, respectively, in the wake of Monday night\u2019s melee with the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n
Still, the Pistons snagged 17 offensive rebounds.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhen they\u2019re missing Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart, that\u2019s something we should not be dealing with. We should do a much better job with that,\u201d Rajakovic said.<\/p>\n
Toronto now has eight days off, though a large contingent will be headed to Los Angeles for all-star weekend.<\/p>\n
Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram will play in the game, Rajakovic and his coaching staff will lead Team World, and rookies Collin Murray-Boyles and Alijah Martin along with Canadian A.J. Lawson will compete in the rising stars game.<\/p>\n
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It will be for some deserved recognition for a Raptors team that has exceeded expectations through 55 games. But Toronto will need to take a step against the conference\u2019s elite if they want to make noise after the break.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think overall we can be happy with our progress, but we\u2019re also aware that there\u2019s much more room for growth individually and as a team,” Poeltl said. “We have such a long way to go still and teams like tonight kinda show that for us that we\u2019re still not where we want to be.”<\/p>\n
For now, Rajakovic is pleased \u2014 but sees more growth ahead.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHopefully after the all-star break we will have everybody healthy, so we\u2019re gonna be able to make a next step for us,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe that our best basketball is ahead of us and not behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2026.<\/p>\n
Myles Dichter, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Jakob Poeltl\u2019s return didn\u2019t exactly go to plan. The Austrian big man played his first game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3770],"tags":[4181,3518,7,75,4441,473,964,10760,188,1016,1399,912,251,6,191,2617,681,1041,1261,680,476,3820],"class_list":["post-600726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto-raptors","tag-a-j-lawson","tag-alijah-martin","tag-basketball","tag-boston-celtics","tag-brandon-ingram","tag-charlotte-hornets","tag-collin-murray-boyles","tag-darko-rajakovic","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-isaiah-stewart","tag-jakob-poeltl","tag-jalen-duren","tag-los-angeles","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-paul-reed","tag-raptors","tag-rj-barrett","tag-scottie-barnes","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-raptors","tag-torontoraptors"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116063070019151511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}