Raptors face tremendous opportunity as softer schedule approaches

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Honest question, RJ Barrett: what day is it? 

“Thursday? Saturday? I know it’s near the end of the week,” the Toronto Raptors wing says on Friday afternoon, his voice trailing off slightly. “I don’t know.”

Nothing captures the ‘there are only game days and practice days’ reality of NBA life — especially on the road — quite like grown, high-functioning adults not knowing what day of the week it is, or what city they are in. 

The road exacerbates it, and the Raptors will have been away from home for 13 of the first 22 nights of the season by the time their current five-game road trip wraps up in Indianapolis Saturday.

And it’s not just players for whom time blurs.  

“I believe you're gonna think that I'm lying,” said Darko Rajakovic as the Raptors were finishing practice on campus at Marian University. “But I really only know that we’re playing the next game against Indiana, and I believe that they're playing the next games against Washington and Brooklyn. I really don't know who we play after that.”

Actually, I don’t think you’re lying, Darko, given that the Raptors' next two games (after the Pacers Saturday) are at home against Charlotte on Monday and then on the road against Philadelphia on Wednesday. It’s only after those two do they host Washington and Brooklyn. 

But the point of the exercise is that if there were ever a time for the Raptors to veer from their ‘just get the next one’ mantra, it might be right now. 

Yes, it’s accurate that nothing the Toronto Raptors did in their impressive win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday can actually help them in their match-up with injury-riddled Indiana, other than perhaps carrying over some good vibes. 

And win or lose, their meeting with the Charlotte Hornets at home Monday will exist independently of whatever happens after that. 

But there are moments during that 82-game schedule where entire seasons can take shape. It’s not that any single segment defines the rest of the year, but like investing or even gambling, some of the biggest gains are made in the smallest of windows. 

The Raptors are in one of those windows now. There are many points during an NBA season when circumstances conspire against you and wins are that much more difficult to come by. Difficult travel, quality opponents, untimely injuries, unexpected slumps — they matter. 

But the reverse is also true. And over the next nine days, the Raptors face a non-murderers’ row if there ever was one (current record in parentheses):

• @ Indiana (1-11)
• Charlotte (4-7)
• @ Philadelphia (7-4)
• Washington (1-11)
• Brooklyn (1-10)

There’s a case that it’s the easiest schedule any NBA team has ever had, as according to ESPN’s Kevin Pelton, this is just the second time that three teams in the same conference have started the season at 1-10 or worse. The other was in 1997-98, when it was the Western Conference dregs that were bringing the NBA down. That year, the Raptors started 1-10 also, but they were in the East, of course. 

So anyway you cut it, playing three teams with a cumulative 3-32 record in the space of five games, while hosting the 4-7 Hornets in between, is the basketball equivalent of finding a wallet with no ID and a couple of hundred dollars cash lying on the sidewalk. Pick that thing up.

Even travelling to play the Sixers could be worse, as Joel Embiid — who scored 29 points in 26 minutes against the Raptors in a Philadelphia win last week — has missed the last three games due to soreness in his right knee. 

Bottom line is the Raptors, winners of six games in their past seven and sitting two games above .500 for the first time since November 2022, could get on a serious roll here. 

And in the Eastern Conference — where finishing six or seven games above .500 at the end of the regular season could mean a playoff spot — a good week, say winning four of five games, could have them five games above .500 with a week left in November. 

For his part, Barrett appreciates the logic. 

“I think you know, the probably most common answer would be taking it one game at a time, which is true,” he said when I asked him about seeing an opportunity to put some wins in the bank while they can. “First and foremost, let's take care of business here in Indiana.

“But at the same time, standings matter, everything matters. The pushes that you make matter. You don't know what's going to happen over the course of an 82-game season. 

“Right now, we're healthy,” he says, touching the wooden bleachers for luck. “And we have to capitalize on that, especially coming from last year and not being healthy at all. Like, right now is a big time to make a push and make some noise. 

“And I think we've been doing that a little bit, I think the beginning of the season (when the Raptors lost four straight after opening the season with a win), the schedule was tougher, so it should get a little lighter at some point.”

For his part, Rajakovic doesn’t want to hear about the toughness of the schedule. As well as the Raptors have played since their 1-5 start — Toronto is fourth in defence, eighth in offence and fifth in net rating over its past seven games — he still sees plenty of room to improve. 

Even in their impressive win against Cleveland on Thursday, the Raptors gave up 14 offensive rebounds — five of them to Nae’Qwan Tomlin, who has nine NBA games to his credit after going undrafted out of college in 2024. Tomlin — who also scored on a few basic baseline cuts — had only ever scored more than the 18 points he put up against Toronto once in his career. His six rebounds were also the second-best mark of his brief career. 

“I think a couple of times we lost a man, we lost the vision, so they were able to score on a couple of cuts there,” said Rajakovic. “… And then it was a couple of things in the coverages that we could execute better, to be more attached to men and then to do a better job of affecting the ball and then getting back to the shooters. So those are some of the things that we focused on [at practice], trying to clean up.”

The message: regardless of the opponent or their pedigree, they can hurt you. 

“I don't want to know (about our schedule),” Rajakovic said. “Literally, that's my approach, and really taking it one game at a time is very, very important. You look at games, and you just don't know, are they gonna be healthy? Are we gonna be healthy? So many things can happen after every game … there are so many things that are outside of our control, and the NBA is a lot. There is a lot of pressure on players, on coaches and everybody, and I'm trying to limit that just going one day at a time. And there's the whole philosophy of all that we're looking at. I really don't look at it in those terms, like can we make a run here or not? We’re in a good stretch right now and so let’s just take care of business tomorrow night against Indiana.”

Sounds like a plan. But after that comes Charlotte...