Time in spotlight short for Raptors are eliminate them from NBA Cup

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The NBA Cup, now in its third year, might not have really caught on yet, but on paper Tuesday’s tilt against the New York Knicks was the biggest Raptors game in some time. It was Toronto’s first one-game elimination contest since a wild play-in game loss to the Chicago Bulls and DeMar DeRozan in April of 2023. Toronto blew a huge lead in that one and was denied a chance to head to Miami for a winner-take-all for the eighth seed in the playoffs that year.

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This time around they fell behind by 18 in the first half and minus some key players, could not rally against a Knicks team that has had their number with wins in 11 of the last 14 meetings the last four seasons. In fact, things got worse for the Raptors, who trailed by as many as 24 and never really threatened in a 117-101 loss.

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Overall, the reeling Raptors lost for the sixth time in seven games, surrendering a season-high 26 first-half points to Jalen Brunson and way too many easy baskets in the paint. Elite role player Josh Hart also went off against Toronto. That negated a strong effort from Brandon Ingram, who combined with Brunson to score half of the game’s points through 24 minutes.

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Various Raptors had talked up the NBA Cup in the lead-up, noting how besides the prestige of winning the tournament, the financial incentives play a big role too. Advancing to the knockout round earned each Raptor a little over $50,000 U.S. extra and another win would have doubled the amount with it rising to around $500,000 apiece for players on the NBA Cup champions. “Not everybody makes the same amount of money, it’ll mean something to everybody, but there’s definitely some guys that you know it would mean a little more for them,” RJ Barrett had said.

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For the team’s best player, Barnes it was a chance to perform in a bigger spotlight. He’s been one of the 15 best players in the NBA so far, especially when you factor in his defensive dominance (Barnes collected his November Eastern Conference defensive player of the month trophy pre-game), but many hadn’t seen him play until Tuesday.

“With the schedule that we have, we didn’t have that many (national U.S.) TV games,” Barnes told the Toronto Sun last week. “So playing in NBA Cup just trying to get to Vegas, just gonna give us some more exposure, give us some more television time. Keep trying to put the word on us, what we can do and the team we have, obviously, it’s just going to keep bringing more buzz,” Barnes had said.

Unfortunately for Barnes he had a rough night far different than how he’d fared in his playoff debut as a rookie against Philadelphia years ago when he was dominant. He struggled to hit shots and couldn’t stop the Knicks at the other end (he had a lot of company there, especially Jakob Poeltl, who didn’t look right and seems to still be impacted by his back injury).

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Only Ingram and Immanuel Quickley had previously competed in the NBA Cup knockout stage, with Ingram dominant in a 2023- semi-final win for New Orleans (30 points on 50% shooting), but way off in a semi-final loss. Quickley had also lost in 2023, in the quarter-final, shooting just 1-for-7 for New York in that one.

The Knicks advance to take on Orlando in Las Vegas, while Toronto is off until playing Miami on Monday.

EMBRACING THE PRESSURE

Knicks head coach Mike Brown said pre-game this is as close as regular season games can get to playoff games.

“I’ve said this to our guys before. Anytime you can manufacture any type of pressure throughout the course of the regular season, you try to do it,” Brown said. “If you’re in position to feel any type of pressure at all, that’s a privilege. So you embrace it. And that’s the way I kind of look at it more than else. Hey, it’s a one game elimination feel, which means there’s a little bit of pressure there. Embrace it, because you look forward to those things and those challenges, especially if you’re a competitor.”

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CHANGING IT UP

With Quickley’s illness worsening (he had been a game-time decision Sunday but ended up playing), the team’s starting point guard was out against his former team. RJ Barrett remained sidelined too, meaning the return for New York for OG Anunoby for Toronto was in street clothes for this big game. That necessitated a new look lineup for Darko Rajakovic. Jamal Shead was the obvious choice at point guard, but from his lengthy cast of characters at shooting guard, Toronto’s head coach opted for Ochai Agbaji. Agbaji made 45 starts in 64 games in a career season last year, but had struggled this year until a recent hot stretch and had only previously started one time. Shead made his first start after doing so 11 times as a rookie and was one of the better Raptors offensively, scoring a career-best 18 points, while Agbaji was quiet with only three.

This was the first game Quickley’s missed, a far cry from the 49 he was out for last season.

Barnes, Ingram, Shead and Gradey Dick are now the only Raptors to play in all 26 outings so far.

Rajakovic had said other Raptors would have to step up to win the game, but that didn’t really happen.

@WolstatSun

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