The start of this Toronto Raptors season has been one of extremes: A dominant opening-night win, followed by four sound-the-alarm losses, straight into four ‘are-they-contenders?’ wins.

Though there have been moments where all hope seemed lost and others where the prospects of a Blue Jays-esque run to glory might be in the cards, chances are the Raptors fall somewhere in between.

No, the Raptors’ defence wasn’t going to be the world-breaking force it had been in the four games before Saturday’s 130-120 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, when they had the best defence in the NBA, allowing only 100.5 points a game on a 40.1 opposing field-goal percentage and 28.7 opposing three-point percentage.

But the hope is that they’re also not a team that will allow 130 or more points on a given night, as they’ve done three times this season.

The key to staying sane while watching the Raptors is not to be a prisoner of the moment. Watching Tyrese Maxey dice up your defence and Joel Embiid leverage his strength is just part of what you can be served in the NBA on a given night. It doesn’t take away from the four-game stretch before this one. They beat the Cleveland Cavaliers and Milwaukee Bucks after all.

However, giving up 20 points, 17 rebounds (five offensive) and 10 assists to Trendon Watford is something you may hope to avoid if you want to be a glass-half-full guy.

Not having Jakob Poeltl manning the middle made the task harder, and the choice to bring Ochai Agbaji into the starting lineup as opposed to rookie Collin Murray-Boyles — who had previously started the games Poeltl has missed this season — was a solid one in hopes of shutting down Maxey and backcourt partner VJ Edgecombe.

But that led to Embiid having his best game of the season, finishing with 29 points, six rebounds and four assists in 26 minutes (he was on a minutes restriction, otherwise it could’ve gotten uglier).

It also led to a massive discrepancy on the boards, as the 76ers won the hustle battle 54-38, and came away with the win thanks to an all-out glass-crashing effort in the fourth, pulling down 12 offensive rebounds in the frame to help secure the win.

Again, this is what Maxey has done to teams all season long. His 33.5 points per game coming into Saturday were the most in the NBA, and there’s no such thing as shutting him down, only slowing him down (and good luck with that considering his burst).

Couple all those bits with the 76ers having the third-best offensive rating in the NBA (120.7) heading into the game and the Raptors being on the tail end of a back-to-back, and it makes sense that their defence looked a bit less convincing than it had in days past.

Who they were in the prior four-game stretch likely isn’t who they’ll be for the rest of the season. But the same goes for Saturday’s game — the defence on display likely isn’t who they’ll be once 82 games are played and everything evens out. The losses have been ugly, but the wins have been stellar; it’s just a matter of finding even ground.

It’s a common misconception, brought on by the Jurassic Park franchise, that velociraptors hunt in packs. But this team is kicking science to the curb, bringing a host of hunters to put in some big performances.

While it’s not the Bench Mob of the 2010s, the reinvigoration of the Raptors’ secondary unit felt like a clear goal heading into the season. Youngsters like Ja’Kobe Walter, Gradey Dick and Jamal Shead were expected to take steps, while rookie Collin Murray-Boyles could be that defensive lynchpin on the wing and free agent Sandro Mamukelashvili would give them new looks as a stretch five.

They rolled the dice yet again on Saturday, hoping one of them could provide that boost, and won that bet, winning the bench battle 37-20 with solid contributions from Murray-Boyles (12 points, seven rebounds, one steal and two blocks) and Mamukelashvili (10 points, three rebounds, two steals and one block).

Murray Boyles’ two-way efforts really stood out. Late in the first quarter, he picked up Kelly Oubre full court, poked the ball loose with his long arms and forced the 76ers wing to foul him. Then, a couple possessions later, he stuffed fellow rookie Edgecombe at the rim, and on the 76ers’ final look of the frame, deflected a pass out of bounds, forcing the reset with 2.2 left.

However, the Raptors were hoping to get a bit more out of third-year wing Dick and Walter, who both finished 1-of-6 from the field and were plagued by poor defence and decision-making.

Even if the results weren’t there for some, to be able to deploy a 10-man rotation in hopes of a couple of guys showing out is a luxury. Depth matters in today’s NBA, so to see the Raptors leaning on it and learning how to deploy it is a good sign early on.

Not the right outburst for Ingram

Unfortunately, the moment most likely to go viral from Saturday’s game was Ingram throwing a water bottle in the third quarter that exploded on the sidelines.

It was a show of frustration from a guy who’s dealt with injuries aplenty over his career and who had just come off the floor after tweaking something in his lower body. In the time it took him to get to the bench, the Raptors were called for their second delay-of-game foul, leading to an extra shot at the charity stripe.

All this to say that a little emotion is somewhat warranted for Ingram in a moment like that, regardless of the optics.

But it was also an encapsulation of Ingram’s struggles in this outing, despite his 21 points, eight rebounds and five assists.

Though he netted some opportune buckets for the Raptors — particularly during an ugly stretch in the second that saw them go without a field goal for nearly five minutes — he was a non-factor on defence and couldn’t find a consistent rhythm against Watford, finishing as a -11 on the night.

Leading the way on offence was Immanuel Quickley, who was the catalyst for a stellar first quarter and was a driving force in their near-comeback during the second half.

Though critics were rightfully going at him in the early stretch of the season, the 26-year-old guard has settled into a rhythm in the last two games, netting 18 against the Hawks on Friday and finishing with 22 points, six rebounds and six assists against the Sixers, while hitting five of his nine triples.

He came out gunning, netting a catch-and-shoot look off a sideline-out-of-bounds play. Then he drilled a 26-footer from the wing, and a couple possessions later, walked into another 26-footer in transition to establish the Raptors’ rhythm from deep in the frame — they wound up hitting eight of their 10 three-point looks in the first.

Later on, as the Raptors tried to claw back in the third, the sharpshooter nailed back-to-back triples with less than two minutes to go to start a run that would transform an 11-point deficit into only two.

Quickley hasn’t looked confident to start the season, shooting only 30 per cent from deep heading into Saturday, so seeing him recapture his form should go a long way for a team that desperately needs his shooting and table-setting ability.