Road warrior Raptors beat up on Wizards as Poeltl, Quickley go off

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The Toronto Raptors got back on track against a weak opponent Saturday, though they didn’t make it easy on themselves.

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Defence was optional early, the offence struggled and the woeful Washington Wizards built a lead as big as 13 in the first half and clung to a one-point halftime edge, before the Raptors swung the game with dominant interior play in the third and then kept doing what they wanted in the fourth and won 134-125.

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The Raptors scored at will inside in the third to build a six-point edge, then throttled the Wizards, now 11-20 at home, in the fourth.

Immanuel Quickley, playing close to his Maryland home, had perhaps his best game of the season with 27 points, 11 assists and only one turnover. Brandon Ingram had 24, plus five assists and five rebounds and Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett both shifted wretched first halves to strong third and fourth quarters and scored 18 and 21 points, respectively.

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Jakob Poeltl had a spectacular night before fouling out, hitting all seven of his shot attempts for 18 points, while adding 10 rebounds.

The highlight for the Wizards was Cambridge, Ont. native Will Riley, a rookie, going off for 19 points off the bench.

More from a game the Raptors had to have, considering the competition and recent results:

KINGS OF THE ROAD

Toronto has now won eight times in its last 10 road games and this was the 19th road victory of the year. That’s already tied for the 10th most road wins in franchise history in 31 seasons.

The previous two Raptors teams combined to win 23 away games, so this is quite a change for Rajakovic’s group.

Only five teams have done better so far on the road. Quickley, in particular, has fared better in away games.

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Now if only they can start finding some success at home.

Toronto was coming off a tight home loss against San Antonio before heading out on this one-game trip. New York, a thorn in Toronto’s side the last three seasons, is in town Tuesday, before the Raptors go for another short one, to Minneapolis to face Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves Thursday.

PASSING FANCY

Quickley set a new career high with his first assist of the night, his 332nd of the season, passing the 331 he notched two seasons ago in 11 fewer games.

Quickley is averaging six assists per game and has 42 games with at least five assists, both also new highs for him.

In New York Quickley was used mostly as a microwave type of scorer off the bench and only occasionally ran the offence. Toronto bet when acquiring him that he’d be able to be more of a full-time point guard, as well as being the type of shooting threat that would allow Barnes to thrive.

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He’s still a work in progress, but the chatter from the off-season and early this year that his contract was an albatross and he was some kind of net negative was always misplaced and not the most clever type of analysis.

Toronto overpaid, as we’ve noted several times, it’s unclear who they were bidding against, but Quickley is a solid point guard and the contract remains flat. In a rising salary cap environment it will look better as time progresses, assuming he keeps progressing.

CMB A NO-GO

Standout rookie Collin Murray-Boyles hurt his sore thumb again in his last game and had to leave just a minute into the fourth quarter. The hope was a couple of days of rest would be enough to get him back on the floor, but that wasn’t the case.

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“It’s sore and every time he gets hit it’s just like it’s a lot of pain, and he just needs to manage that pain,” Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic had said when asked about the issue by the Toronto Sun after the Spurs game.

“It’s something that he’s going to be dealing with for the rest of the year.”

Poeltl returned to the starting lineup after he came off the bench behind Murray-Boyles in two of Toronto’s previous three games and delivered another excellent game.

YOUNG BUNCH OF MAGICIANS

Washington is about as young a team as you will find, at least when you take injured veterans Anthony Davis, Trae Young and D’Angelo Russell out of the equation.

Saturday’s starting group included 19-year-old Tre Johnson (taken 6th overall in 2025), 20-year-old Bub Carrington (14th in 2024), 21-year-old Bilal Coulibaly (7th in 2023), 22-year-old Kyshawn George (24th in 2024 and half-Canadian) and elder statesman Tristan Vukevic, 22, who was filling in for franchise centre Alex Sarr, who is 20 and was the second pick in 2024. Riley is only 20, but was already starting to show flashes in the NBA after being picked 21st before this eye-opener.

Like a lot of youngsters, some looked really good early (like Johnson and Carrington) before later having some dismal moments.

@WolstatSun

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