{"id":358217,"date":"2025-12-20T19:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T19:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/358217\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T19:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T19:13:07","slug":"raptors-jakob-poeltl-doubtful-against-celtics-with-back-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/358217\/","title":{"rendered":"Raptors&#8217; Jakob Poeltl doubtful against Celtics with back injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/toronto-raptors\/\" class=\"sn-team-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-team=\"toronto-raptors\" data-league=\"nba\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Toronto Raptors<\/a> may be down a big man when they face the Boston Celtics on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Starting centre <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/basketball\/nba\/players\/jakob-poeltl\/e1b3d3d5-b4b1-481a-b5b9-efe4231f48bf\" class=\"sn-player-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-player=\"e1b3d3d5-b4b1-481a-b5b9-efe4231f48bf\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Jakob Poeltl<\/a> is doubtful to play the divisional contest due to lower back injury management, the Raptors said.<\/p>\n<p>Poeltl also missed Thursday&#8217;s win over the Milwaukee Bucks. He has played in just 20 of 28 games as he manages the ailment.<\/p>\n<p>The Austrian big man suffered the initial injury on Oct. 27, when he exited a game early against the San Antonio Spurs and missed the two subsequent games.<\/p>\n<p>The issue has slowed down his production this season, holding him to averages of 10.1 points, eight rebounds and 0.6 blocks per game while playing 26.2 minutes a night.<\/p>\n<p>Also out for the Raptors on Saturday is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/basketball\/nba\/players\/rj-barrett\/42c5f009-dfd2-4a94-a750-0943791e138e\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RJ Barrett<\/a>, who has been sidelined with a right knee sprain since Nov. 23. He received a platelet-rich plasma injection last week and has been participating in return-to-play activities this week.<\/p>\n<p>The Mississauga, Ont., native had a strong start to his season before the injury, averaging 19.4 points, 4.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 30.9 minutes in 17 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Raptors may be down a big man when they face the Boston Celtics on Saturday. Starting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-358217","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\/358217","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=358217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}