Last-Minute News, Rumours, Reports before Toronto Raptors vs Boston Celtics Game

Last season the Boston Celtics faced off against the Toronto Raptors four times and the Raptors didn't win a single game. Two of those wins came right here in Toronto and three of four of them came without Jason Tatum who was still out with his torn Achilles. Tonight they are facing off again in the Scotiabank Arena with Tatum healthy and scoring 27 points a game. And on the Raptors side, obviously Kawhi Leonard is going to be out, Scottie Barnes is confirmed out for this game and And Emmanuel Quickly is still questionable as of recording. The Raptors are 5-5, coming off a 16-point loss at home to Memphis on Monday. The one positive for the Raptors is that Boston is not resting here tonight, as they are in Philadelphia playing Jalen Brown, the star that they traded away this summer. So it's the second best team out there in the Eastern Conference on the second night of a back-to-back, playing against the Toronto Raptors team without two of their best players. So who's actually going to be on the floor for the Toronto Raptors tomorrow night, and is it enough to beat the Boston Celtics? We have an official report confirming Scottie Barnes is out with a left groin strain for the third straight game. Obviously, this is a huge blow for the Raptors without Kawhi Leonard as Scottie's averaging 23.5 points a game, which is the best on the team and the two games without him went both ways. A 14 point win against Milwaukee. That was a pretty ugly win to say the least. And then a 16 point loss at home to the Grizzlies. The team hasn't put a date on his return, but hopefully he will be back soon because we're going to need him with the bloodbath of a The schedule that we have coming up. Obviously, you don't want to rush him back, but we'll keep our eyes peeled for those Scotty Burns updates. And obviously, Kawhi Leonard hasn't played since October 23rd, and this is his ninth straight game he's going to miss against the Boston Celtics. Obviously, Kawhi has played in two games, averaging 19.5 points a night. And even though he was a little bit off in those two games, you miss his impact. You miss what he brings out there to this team on the court. But without Kawhi, the Raptors have three wins on the season. They've beaten the Milwaukee Bucks, the Orlando Magic, and the Los Angeles Clippers. We made a whole video on it yesterday, but the team's only word out there on Kawhi Leonard's status is that he's reconditioning that left knee, and the next update will come in a week. Chris Haynes reported it will be about 3-4 weeks until we get a Kawhi Leonard return on October 29th, so that window only opens up around November 19th, but nobody's really given an official date. But the name we're looking at most is Emmanuel quickly, as he is currently questionable heading into this game. He played in Denver last week and had 13 points, seven assists, and then sat the next two games with a right hamstring injury. That's the same muscle that bothered him at the end of last season, so Toronto has to be careful with it. Obviously, if he plays, the Raptors will have some real shooting at the guard position. Obviously, quickly, he's pretty hot and cold, but he's our starting point guard, and without him, we'll be running basically the same unit that lost to Memphis on Monday. In other notable additions to the injury report, Nate Biddle is still out with a foot fracture. Colyer Murray-Boyles and Trace Jackson-Davis are are both questionable with an illness. Obviously, without Murray Boyles and Trace Jackson-Davis, your frontcourt is a lot thinner, but CMB has been playing well as of late. He had 19 points in Milwaukee. It was a plus 17 in his 34 minutes. Now, even though the Celtics are on the second night of a back-to-back, they have a lot cleaner injury report than the Toronto Raptors. The only two names on there right now are both two-way players who are down with the G League. Every Celtic who matters somewhere, well, is probably going to get minutes, is available. And this is in the Boston Celtics team that I saw a lot of people writing off in the summer. They traded away Jalen Brown to Philadelphia for Paul George, and Brown had 30, 25, and 26 against Toronto last season. Now Paul George is averaging 20 points per game while wearing that Celtics green and opened the season with 38 in Detroit with 7 made threes. And Jason Tatum's all the way back here now as well. He returned from his Achilles injury in March after 298 days out Out there on the reserve. Boston went 10-2 in his first 12 games back. This year, he's scoring 27.1 points a game and leading them to 7 with 7.8 assists. Their backcourt's been playing pretty solid as well. Derek White's averaging close to 13 points a game, and Peyton Pritchard is averaging 12.8 off the bench. As a team, they're third in the NBA on offense and sixth on defense, and they've won three straight by 7, 39, and 20. Now, I'm actually recording this in the middle of their game against the Philadelphia 76ers. This is the first game. Tatum and Brown are facing up against each other. They had an awkward dap up at the start. Jalen Brown was unwilling to shake Jason Tatum's hand. Apparently, Jalen Brown's really salty at leaving the Celtics and all that type of stuff. But nonetheless, the outcome of today's game could impact who's available for tomorrow and all that type of stuff. And interestingly enough, the Raptors will get the same test the Celtics have right now against the Sixers as on Thursday, the Raptors fly to Philadelphia and face off against Philly. So how on earth can the Toronto Raptors beat a healthy Boston Celtics team without their top guys? Well, two teams have already beat Boston this season, and they did it the same way. The Pistons beat them on opening night, 121-113, and Houston beat them by 16 on November 2nd. And both those games were road games for the Celtics, and tomorrow was on the road for Boston as well. Both nights, Tatum couldn't find it. 6-23 in Detroit and 5-16 in Houston. And from From three, he was one of 14 across those two games. This is a guy that's made five threes in each of his last two games, so that's a shot that the Toronto Raptors have to take away. In Houston, he also turned over the ball five times. And Boston lives on their three-point shots. They took 42 threes in Detroit, 42 in Houston, and 48 on Sunday, Milwaukee. In Houston, they made 12 of 42, and that was the game. The other thing the teams have done is go straight to the rim. Houston outscored Boston 50-34 in the paint, and Alperen Sengun had 26-12 of 15 shooting. In Detroit, Jalen Duren had 22 points on 8 of 13 shooting, and the Pistons out-rebounded them 49 to 39. And that's where Jakob Poeltl comes in for the Toronto Raptors. Poeltl had 19 and 11 in Milwaukee, and then 18 points on 9 of 12 shooting against Memphis. And last season, the Raptors and Jakob Poeltl really struggled against the Celtics big men, so we saw Nimpha Keita go off for 9 of 10 shooting against the Raptors. And this is a team that also added Mitchell Robinson to their team, team who's also another Efficient offensive rebounder and rim scorer. But nonetheless, the Toronto Raptors have done this to the Celtics exactly once before. The Raptors are 1-15 in their last 16 games against Boston, dating back to December of 2022. That run includes a 125-71 loss in Boston on New Year's Eve in 2024. And the one win came two weeks later in January 15th of 2025. The Raptors won 110-97 right here in Toronto. And in that game, Jakob Poeltl went 8-8 from the field for 16 points, 11 rebounds, and RJ Barrett had 22 points, 10 rebounds, and 8 assists. Toronto scored 60 points in the paint, and Boston only had 40, and the Raptors out-rebounded them 56-45, and Boston went 16-46 from 3. That's the same recipe that Detroit and Houston had in their wins against the Celtics so far this season. Obviously, this is a different roster, but it's the similar core makeup. So the Raptors have to be able to attack the rim, take away the three-point shots, and get the best of the Celtics big men. The good news is the Toronto Raptors' shorthanded roster without Kawhi, without Scottie, has already gotten a win at least. And they did it on the road against, yes, an underwhelming Milwaukee Bucks team, but they overcame some adversity where they couldn't hit a shot in the first half. In Milwaukee last Friday, with no Barnes, no Kawhi, no Quickly, they won by 14, and Elijah Martin scored 27 points on 11 shots and made 6 of his 7 threes. Now, on Monday, against the Memphis Grizzlies, he only had 2 points in 21 minutes. So, it's going to be, you know, you hate to say it going up against such an aggressive team, but Elijah Martin, it's going to be an X-factor in this game against the Celtics. Jamal Shead is going to be the guy that's running the show. He's had 16 assists in that Milwaukee Bucks win, and through his first 8 games, he never scored more than 13 points, but against Memphis on Monday, he had 20 points, 11 assists, which is the first 20-10 game of his career. And he's playing a different role now too. Through 8 games, he never topped 25 minutes, and with Barnes out, he's played 34 and 36. And then the one guy that's been the most reliable player for the Raptors is going to continue to have to step up, as RJ Barrett's been the top scorer, You know, the only top scorer that they have left standing, you know, and he's been averaging 21.3 points a game and he scored 20 or more in eight of his 10 games this season. But on Monday, the defense was really honed in on him and he needed 21 shots to get 19 points. And the Raptors lost that game by 16. The help came from Jamison Battle instead, as he had 18 points and five made threes off the bench. And Toronto needs two of these guys to once again have solid performances. One thing to note, if you like the daily, twice a day, multiple pieces of content we have every day here on Raptor Side, just make sure you guys hit that subscribe button. It's completely free and you won't miss a single thing regarding your team. But Toronto beat the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday in the paint. They had 50 points compared to the 42 that was scored by Memphis and still lost by 16. The reason why they ended up losing that game despite winning the game in the paint is they shot 13 of 38 from behind the three-point line and Memphis made 16 of 34. Ty Jerome had 27 points for Memphis and five made threes. And that's going to be the Peyton Pritchard role tomorrow. And at the free throw line, Memphis went 18 of 19. And the Raptors have been really frustrating from behind the free throw line this season. They went 11 of 17 in that game. If you add it all up, that's 66 points from threes and free throws for Memphis and 50 for Toronto. That's the whole 16 point margin. Toronto's best shooters went cold as well as Barrett went one for six from three and Walter went two of seven. And that's exactly how Boston has beaten the Raptors. Every game last season and most of their games that they played, the Celtics hit a ton of threes and they take a lot of threes. And a couple of names you got to be worried about is Peyton Pritchard, who's a notorious Toronto Raptors killer. He scored 33 in December and 27 in January against Toronto. And Derek White hit six threes and had a 27 point game here in December. And they'll let it fly. Pritchard took 11 threes on Sunday in Milwaukee alone. With Quickly out, Shed and Jacoby Walter are the guards chasing them around with all the screens that the Celtics set every single night. And then with no Scottie Barnes to go out and guard the other team's best player, if Shed and Jacoby are guarding their guards, hoisting up threes and all that. Jason Tatum is just going to be guarded by whoever's left and whoever's out there suited up on the court. And obviously it's favored for the Celtics, but whoever wins the three-point line and the free throw stripe is probably going to win this game. Which brings us to our biggest question of this game. Who the heck is going to guard Jason Tatum with Kawhi Leonard and Scottie Barnes out? Of course, Scottie would have had that job, but he is confirmed to be You'll be missing this game. And we brought up the two losses the Celtics have on the season. They lost to Detroit, who have Sarah Thompson, and then Houston, who have Amon Thompson, which are two athletic wings who stay in front of them, are some of the best on-ball defenders in the league. Toronto's closest thing tonight will be Colin Murray-Boyles, and he's questionable with an illness. And if he can't go, it's probably Jacoby Walter who's going to be giving up some size, or R.J. Barrett. Burnin' energy on the defensive end that he needs to have out there on offense where the Raptors don't really have a big scoring punch. Last April in Boston, Tatum had 23 on 7-15 shooting against the Raptors. Obviously, he's going to get his points, but if you make him take 20 shots to get his buckets, you're playing the same game that Detroit and Houston had and they were able to win. But nonetheless, that is my, uh, as the matchup I'm most worried about heading into this game. Obviously, the Raptors are depleted, but the Celtics are on a second night of a back-to-back where they're traveling in between, so hopefully this will be a, you know, they'll make a game out of it. Hopefully, it'll be competitive and a good one to watch, but the biggest things to look for are Jakob Poeltl at the rim, the threes and free throws, and who the heck is going to guard Jason Tatum. The Raptors are on a deep, cold streak facing off against the Boston Celtics, so if they can get a win without their two top guys, that would be a massive momentum builder for one of your division rivals. So let me know in the comments who you think is going to score the most points for the Raptors in tonight's game, RJ Barrett, type R in the comments, type S for Jamal Murray, or let me know who else. If you want the latest on the Toronto Raptors trade front, check out this video right here.