{"id":360545,"date":"2025-12-21T22:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T22:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/360545\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T22:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T22:48:09","slug":"raptors-c-jakob-poeltl-returns-vs-nets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/360545\/","title":{"rendered":"Raptors C Jakob Poeltl returns vs. Nets"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Toronto Raptors<\/a> look to bounce back on the second night of a back-to-back, they may be welcoming some reinforcements.<\/p>\n

Poeltl has missed the team’s last two contests due to a lingering back injury.<\/p>\n

The Raptors are coming off a 112-96 loss to the Boston Celtics on Saturday, in which Poeltl’s absence was certainly felt. Toronto was outrebounded 55-37 and gave up 17 offensive boards for 23 second-chance points.<\/p>\n

Poeltl entered the weekend with a probable designation, but was downgraded to doubtful on Saturday morning before ultimately being ruled out against Boston.<\/p>\n

Before losing to the Celtics, Rajakovic described Poeltl’s ongoing back injury \u2014 causing him to miss nine games already this season \u2014 as “unpredictable.”<\/p>\n

The bench boss did add, however, that he believes “it’s not that serious” and that the Austrian big man should be back to his usual availability sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

Poeltl’s production has seen a dip this season amid the back concerns, averaging 10.1 points, 8.0 rebounds and 2.3 assists through 20 appearances. All of which came on the heels of a career-best season in 2024-25, which earned the 30-year-old a three-year, $84 million extension in the off-season.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Raptors will be without RJ Barrett<\/a> as the starting guard will miss his 13th consecutive game due to a right-knee sprain suffered on Nov. 23 against the Nets. Also missing Sunday’s contest will be Jonathan Mogbo, who’s with two-way players A.J. Lawson, Alijah Martin and Chucky Hepburn in Orlando for the NBA G League showcase, representing the Raptors 905, Toronto’s affiliate team.<\/p>\n

Toronto enters the Atlantic Division matchup against Brooklyn with a 17-12 record, sitting fourth in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Toronto Raptors look to bounce back on the second night of a back-to-back, they may be…\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-360545","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\/360545","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=360545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360545\/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=360545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}