{"id":919907,"date":"2026-10-04T05:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T05:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/919907\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T05:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T05:12:10","slug":"toronto-raptors-drop-pre-season-opener-to-miami-heat-in-first-ever-nba-game-in-quebec-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/919907\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Raptors drop pre-season opener to Miami Heat in first-ever NBA game in Quebec City"},"content":{"rendered":"

QU\u00c9BEC \u2014 The Toronto Raptors<\/a> had their six-game winning streak in Quebec snapped with a 129-105 pre-season defeat against the Miami Heat<\/a> in the first-ever NBA game in Quebec City on Saturday at Centre Vid\u00e9otron.<\/p>\n

The game, played in front of a sellout crowd of 18,474, was part of the NBA Canada Series which sees a second game in Vancouver on Oct. 10 when the Raptors will meet the Los Angeles Clippers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic didn\u2019t dress star forward Kawhi Leonard<\/a> and will not in Vancouver as well. Leonard is still nursing an injury and Rajakovic won\u2019t rush the two-time NBA Finals MVP.<\/p>\n

As for the Heat, head coach Erik Spoelstra started star Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>, who was acquired from the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>. Antetokounmpo scored nine points Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Both head coaches had their lone Canadians as starters for the game: R.J. Barrett for Toronto, and Andrew Wiggins<\/a> for the Heat. <\/p>\n

Barrett and Tyreke Key<\/a> led the Raptors with 15 points each, while Tim Hardaway Jr.<\/a> with 14, led the Heat in scoring.<\/p>\n

Rajakovic said a lack of experience showed with many of his players competing in their first professional game, but was pleased with some details in the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefensively, we forced the Heat to 25 turnovers, which was a good job by our team, but in some instances, we lacked discipline when we had to get back on defence,\u201d Rajakovic said. <\/p>\n

He added that the team will need to work on getting more defensive rebounds as Miami grabbed 13 offensive rebounds.<\/p>\n

Rajakovic wasn\u2019t impressed with the offence. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t shoot the ball well tonight, and even though we took more three-point shots, we only shot 29 per cent from the three-point line\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Raptors will continue their training camp in Toronto this week, before heading to the West Coast next Thursday.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Luc Lang, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"QU\u00c9BEC \u2014 The Toronto Raptors had their six-game winning streak in Quebec snapped with a 129-105 pre-season defeat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":919908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,82,3302],"class_list":["post-919907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919907","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=919907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}