dropped Toronto to seventh in the Eastern Conference standings<\/a> with only six games still to be played.<\/p>\nOther than a three-day blip early last month, the Raptors have held down a playoff spot since mid-December (with most of that time being spent in either fourth or fifth place in the conference).<\/p>\n
Suddenly, though, the team finds itself in the dreaded play-in, with a mostly feel-good season possibly drifting toward disaster.<\/p>\n
The Hawks are rampaging, the Sixers just scored 153 points without Joel Embiid in the lineup, now have Tyrese Maxey back in all-NBA form and Paul George turning back the clock to his prime as the Raptors are flailing, with key players Immanuel Quickley and Brandon Ingram banged up to the point they\u2019ve missed recent games.<\/p>\n
Plus, Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett are nowhere close to 100%, though they\u2019re playing through it. Both had two of their worst performances of the season against the Kings and afterward Barrett seemed surprise by the whole team\u2019s lack of fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a game we\u2019re supposed to win, no matter what,\u201d Barrett told reporters while up at the podium post-game. \u201cWe can\u2019t lose this game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet, they did. Now what? Quickley\u2019s Plantar Fasciitis is improving at least a bit, but it\u2019s unclear when he\u2019ll be able to play again. Quickley\u2019s shooting is badly missed. He and the others who are banged up will likely just be playing through ailments the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
The only good news for the Raptors was Orlando got drilled by Atlanta (despite finally getting Franz Wagner back after a long absence) and remained two games behind Toronto, tied with Charlotte.<\/p>\n
As well, a horrendous Heat performance at home against Boston dropped Miami to 10th and they and Atlanta have played one more game each than the other four also in the play-in\/playoff mix.<\/p>\n
WHAT\u2019S NEXT?<\/p>\n
Friday in Memphis is not a must-win game for the Raptors, but it\u2019s pretty close. A loss to a second straight terrible team playing for nothing would potentially cause the team\u2019s wheels to completely fall off.<\/p>\n
It would be hard to recover from two straight shocking losses against weak sides that should be easily handled. The Sixers host a very good Minnesota team that night, so if the Raptors take care of business and the Wolves do too, Toronto could be back above the play-in line in quick order.<\/p>\n
If not, well, they\u2019ll have to win in Boston against a Celtics team that suddenly might be the class of the conference.<\/p>\n
It looks like things are going to come down to the wire in the East behind the Top 4.<\/p>\n
As a reminder, the seventh-place team will host eighth place on April 14. The winner earns the seventh seed, the loser hosts the winner of the nine vs. 10 game (eg. If Raptors finish seventh it\u2019s possible they add two extra home games should they lose the first one).<\/p>\n
In the West, the first six playoff teams appear set (Oklahoma City and San Antonio are vying for first place, the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver for third, Houston and Minnesota for fifth). Phoenix will likely host the eighth-place finisher (either the Clippers or Portland) and it looks like Golden State will finish 10th, needing to win two road play-in games to earn the eighth seed.<\/p>\n
MARTIN ONE OF G LEAGUE\u2019S BEST<\/p>\n
Raptors rookie Alijah Martin, taken 39th in the 2025 NBA draft, finished second in G League rookie of the year voting and third in defensive player of the year voting, capping a strong freshman season.<\/p>\n
About a year ago, Martin finished an outstanding season at Florida by helping the Gators win the NCAA title.<\/p>\n
He has only gotten into 19 games for the Raptors so far, but has a presence on the court and it doesn\u2019t seem like it will be too long until he is a part of head coach Darko Rajakovic\u2019s rotation.<\/p>\n
SETTING THE PACE<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s WNBA expansion team, the Toronto Tempo, finally will start putting its roster together on Friday. That\u2019s when the WNBA will hold its expansion draft for both Toronto and Portland.<\/p>\n
The new teams will alternate picks, starting with the Fire selecting first (the Tempo will pick ahead of Portland in the coming WNBA rookie draft, sixth overall).<\/p>\n
Each existing team had to submit a five-player protected list ahead of the draft.<\/p>\n
Up to two players can be selected from each existing team. Each expansion team can only select one player who will be an unrestricted free agent.<\/p>\n
Chicago already made deals with both Toronto and Portland to not lose any players in the expansion draft.<\/p>\n
@WolstatSun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is the sky falling, or will the Toronto Raptors be OK? Coming off an ugly back-to-back, which saw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3770],"tags":[3518,676,7,45,4441,46,919,559,3213,301,296,403,479,677,292,3715,936,150,293,295,307,6,475,47,526,678,687,681,1041,477,969,1261,96,680,476,3820,1263],"class_list":{"0":"post-694557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-raptors","8":"tag-alijah-martin","9":"tag-atlanta","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-boston","12":"tag-brandon-ingram","13":"tag-celtics","14":"tag-chicago","15":"tag-clippers","16":"tag-demar-derozan","17":"tag-denver","18":"tag-detroit","19":"tag-franz-wagner","20":"tag-golden-state","21":"tag-hawks","22":"tag-houston","23":"tag-immanuel-quickley","24":"tag-joel-embiid","25":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","26":"tag-memphis","27":"tag-miami","28":"tag-minnesota","29":"tag-nba","30":"tag-oklahoma-city","31":"tag-orlando","32":"tag-paul-george","33":"tag-philadelphia","34":"tag-portland","35":"tag-raptors","36":"tag-rj-barrett","37":"tag-sacramento-kings","38":"tag-san-antonio","39":"tag-scottie-barnes","40":"tag-sixers","41":"tag-toronto","42":"tag-toronto-raptors","43":"tag-torontoraptors","44":"tag-tyrese-maxey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694557","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=694557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}