{"id":327111,"date":"2025-12-05T13:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T13:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/327111\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T13:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T13:53:08","slug":"toronto-raptors-refuse-to-make-excuses-with-packed-schedule-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/327111\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Raptors refuse to make excuses with packed schedule this week"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Darko Rajakovic is making no excuses for the Toronto Raptors<\/a>, even as they have to play six games in a nine-day span, including two sets of back-to-backs.<\/p>\n

Toronto lost back-to-back games to the Charlotte Hornets<\/a> and New York Knicks<\/a> last weekend, beat the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> on Tuesday and lost to the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> on Thursday before hosting the Hornets on Friday. They\u2019ll finish the packed stretch when they host the Boston Celtics<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the NBA. There is no place for fatigue,\u201d said Rajakovic after Rui Hachimura<\/a> hit a buzzer-beating three as L.A. beat the Raptors 123-120 on Thursday. \u201cThere is another game tomorrow, you know?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve just got to get ready, get our shoes ready, laces up, and then go and hoop. The schedule cannot be an excuse for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s quick turnaround from the Lakers to the Hornets is the fourth back-to-back of the Raptors\u2019 young season. Toronto is 3-4 so far in those back-to-backs after losing to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Rajakovic said that when he first moved to North America from Europe and started coaching for the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>\u2019s G-League team, then-general manager Paul Rivers gave him some advice about the NBA\u2019s scheduling.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst thing that he told me is, \u2018When you look at a schedule, don\u2019t try to make any common sense out of it,\u2019\u201d Rajakovic said Wednesday after a team practice. \u201cThat was my lesson for the G-League and NBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is just taking one game at a time, obviously. When you play five games in seven nights, you really try to emphasize recovery with players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preventive medicine has been impactful for Toronto in back-to-backs as \u2014 at least so far this season \u2014 starting centre Jakob Poeltl<\/a> has sat out one half of all of the Raptors\u2019 back-to-backs, including Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Rajakovic said before the game against L.A. that Poeltl made the decision to play against the Hornets rather than the Lakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully over the next couple of weeks he can get there, to play both of the games,\u201d said Rajakovic. \u201cWe talked to him yesterday. He did not feel great in the practice. We went pretty short. He did not bounce back from the last game well. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about it. He decided it\u2019s better for him and his back to get one extra day here and get ready for the second game.\u201d<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2025.<\/p>\n

John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Darko Rajakovic is making no excuses for the Toronto Raptors, even as they have to play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-327111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}