TORONTO — If a team arrives in your building missing four starters due to injury — one of them an all-time great in the midst of his best season ever — you should probably win the game.
If you are reasonably successful in your defensive strategy, which (sensibly) calls for nullifying the only remaining proven scorer in your opponent’s lineup — in this case, Denver Nuggets star Jamal Murray — you should probably win the game.
If your opponent — those same injury-decimated Nuggets — lose the only remaining centre they have on their roster, former Raptor Jonas Valanciunas, to injury late in the third quarter, you should probably win the game.
The Toronto Raptors did not win the game. Happy New Year, sure, but not really.
How they could not win the game given the circumstances is a reasonable question.
Denver arrived for its New Year’s Eve matchup with Toronto not only missing leading MVP candidate Nikola Jokic, who suffered a scary-looking hyper-extended knee incident on Monday in Miami and will be out of action for at least four weeks, but also Christian Braun (ankle), Cameron Johnson (knee) and Aaron Gordon (hamstring).
And then Valanciunas, the well-loved former Raptor who was rolling along with 17 points, nine rebounds and four assists 23 minutes into his first start of the season on Wednesday, had to leave the game after straining a muscle in his right calf.
But somehow the Raptors couldn’t take advantage, falling 106-103 to the ghost Nuggets.
And this was with Scottie Barnes putting up his second triple double in two games (20 points, 14 rebounds, 11 assists), leading scorer Brandon Ingram notching a game-high 30 points and RJ Barrett looking very much more himself in his second game back from his own injury, managing 17 points despite his playing time being restricted to 25 minutes as he builds up his conditioning. Oh, and Immanuel Quickley squeezed out 22 points and added five assists without a turnover.
But core players can only be on the floor so long, and as the Raptors were presented a golden opportunity to keep momentum going with a third straight home win on a crucial five-game homestand, their bench unit, which has been a bright spot lately, fumbled it.
Collectively, they shot 6-of-34 from the floor and 0-18 from three.
Other than that, the Raptors were fine.
“We were 0-of-18 from the three-point line,” head coach Darko Rajakovic said of his bench’s performance, one game removed from a season-high 50 points in a win over Orlando. “I thought all of those shots were good shots. The ball did not fall tonight for us.”
There was a brief glimmer of hope that the 19,181 who elected to say farewell to 2025 by hanging out at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday would go off into the frigid night happy.
After former Raptor Bruce Brown missed two free throws with 2.7 seconds left that would have iced the win for Denver, a Barnes rebound and pinpoint outlet pass to Ingram running a “go” route to the left-hand sideline resulted in an off-balance banked-in three that would have forced overtime.
But upon review, the ball was still on the tip of Ingram’s long fingers when the clock ran out, and the basket didn’t count.
“Maybe I need to cut my fingernails,” Ingram said. “We haven’t worked on that moment in practice or anything, but (Barnes and I) had a connection before (the play), while the free throw was going on. He got the rebound, and I knew the spot I wanted to run to, and he delivered a good pass.”
That the shot was a fraction of a second too late meant the Raptors’ modest winning streak was stemmed at two games as their record fell to 20-15, which — on the bright side — still means Toronto will ring in 2026 as the fourth-seed in the Eastern Conference.
The win improved Denver’s record to 23-10, with every win the Nuggets can scrape together essential as they try to maintain their hold on third place in the Western Conference — or at least somewhere in the top-six — while Jokic and the rest of their starters are out.
“We did enough, just enough,” said Jamal Murray, who got to play close to his Kitchener, Ont. home on New Year’s Eve.
Murray was the subject of relentless defensive attention for most of the night as the Raptors were determined to limit the opportunities for the Nuggets’ lone remaining starter and second-leading scorer. Murray finished with 21 points on 6-of-18 shooting (2-of-5 from three) along with seven rebounds and six assists.
He scored the Nuggets’ final field goal when Raptors guard Jamal Shead (2 points on 1-of-8 shooting with five assists) got caught trying to deny Murray the pass and instead was left behind when Brown lobbed the ball over Shead’s head, leading Murray for a lay-up with 13.7 seconds left.
Barrett got a decent look at a game-tying three with 5.1 seconds left, but the ball hit the back rim and came out before Brown missed his two free throws and Ingram’s miracle shot was just a hair late.
But the game was arguably lost well before that when, for the third straight game, the Raptors fell behind by double figures in the first quarter — in this case down by as many as 11 in the opening frame.
“I don’t think we were aggressive in the first half,” said Ingram. “That’s been kind of the trend that we’ve been having to be the aggressor in the second half. The starters, including myself, got to be better coming out in games, but we battled back.”
The Raptors trailed 63-54 at the half but tied the score early in the third quarter after seemingly getting a bit of punch from the addition of Collin Murray-Boyles to the second-half starting lineup in place of Ochai Agbaji. Quickley and Ingram hit a pair of threes, and Barrett converted a three-point play, but Toronto could never open a meaningful gap on Denver and trailed by eight early in the fourth quarter.
The Raptors had come back from double-digit deficits in their previous two games, but couldn’t manage another comeback in the space of five days.
“It was impressive that we could find a way to compete (despite the bench performance),” said Rajakovic. “But definitely shooting was not on our side tonight.”
It was a game they could have won and should have, and it wasn’t the way they wanted to end 2025. Hopefully, it won’t prove to be a tone setter for 2026.
Raptors Summer League on Sportsnet
The Toronto Raptors look to stay undefeated in Summer League action as they take on the Golden State Warriors on July 17. Watch the matchup on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ starting at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT.
Career year for Murray: It’s not often that an already elite player has a career-season in their 10th year in the NBA. But Murray is doing just that. The Canadian is averaging 25.1 points, 6.9 assists and 4.5 rebounds while shooting 45.3 per cent from three — all career-best marks. It should put him in good standing to make his first all-star team and shake the label of “best player to not make an all-star team.”
It’s not his focus, but he’d welcome the honour: “Obviously I’d love to be an all-star, all-NBA, scoring champ, MVP. I want to be all of them, right? But winning matters … if we win a championship but I don’t make all-star … we win a championship …. that’s my mindset”
The great Jokic: The good news is that the Serbian star’s injury isn’t season-threatening. But it will likely take him out of contention for his fourth MVP award (a level only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, LeBron James, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain have reached) as he presumably won’t meet the 65-game minimum to be eligible.
But it does offer a chance to take a snapshot of Jokic’s season so far and show exactly how bananas his performance has been through the 32 games he has played this season. Tommy Beer posted some of these data points on X the other day, and I expanded on them a little bit.
So far this year, Jokic is averaging 29.6 points per game. How good is that? Shaquille O’Neal’s career-best mark is 29.7, set during his MVP season in 1999-00. Jokic is averaging 12.2 rebounds per game, better than Karl Malone’s best mark of 12.0 set in his third season (1987-88). Malone is a two-time MVP and ranks seventh in total rebounds all-time. Jason Kidd is third all-time in career assists, but he’s never averaged 11.1 assists, like Jokic is this season.
Jokic is shooting 67 per cent on twos, which is better than Giannis Antetokounmpo — perhaps the most devastating finisher the NBA has ever seen — has ever averaged in his career. And just to top it off, Jokic is shooting 43.5 per cent from three this year, which is better than the 42.2 per cent career mark for Steph Curry — the best shooter in basketball history.
It’s crazy stuff, and why Rajakovic was right on the mark when he said the 30-year-old Jokic was already in the conversation for the best to have ever played.
Really, Jokic is hurt?: For all the talk about superstar injuries in the NBA, Jokic has always been the exception. He’s never played fewer than 69 games in a season in his previous 10 seasons. The Nuggets were shocked to see him actually be hurt.
“The guy has been as durable as any player in our league, said head coach David Adelman. “… He’s done nothing but play over all these years. It’s an unfortunate situation, but the silver lining is that it’s not a significant injury, but yeah, it was very concerning in the moment for all of us. It’s not just because of the player he is, but because I’ve known him for 10 years … these guys are guys you’re around more than your friends and family, so it’s an emotional thing to see somebody go down. So yeah, it was jarring.”