TORONTO — Things were going too well.

The Toronto Raptors were on their way to a seventh consecutive win, turning an impressive road trip into a solid run of play at home against weak opposition, when RJ Barrett came up limping after a dunk. It seemed like a nothing play — Barrett just didn’t absorb the fall back to the court as he normally does.

The Raptors are calling it a sprained knee, with more testing Monday. Barrett had been playing efficiently, but if there is a position the Raptors can fill in for with their depth, it’s the wing. Ja’Kobe Walter and Gradey Dick have both been playing solidly off the bench.

The injury didn’t stop the Raptors from beating the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday, as they pulled away in the final minutes in the 119-109 win. There are no automatic wins in the NBA, and 12-5 is a pretty nice start as they head into a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, who should be the healthiest they have been all season. The Raptors have beaten them twice in Cleveland.

The Raptors are in a good place. Still, there will be skepticism until we get deeper into the season. Unsure of what to make of the Raptors’ start? We’ve got the optimists and pessimists covered.

Glass half fullThe starters are coming together

Early in the year, Raptors games had a pattern. The starters would get off to a slow start. Jamal Shead and Sandro Mamukelashvili would come in off the bench, and then the Raptors would cut into the deficit. Things would evolve from there, with the Raptors usually finding a way to pull a head on the strength of their hybrid lineups.

Finally, the starters are putting it together. Jakob Poeltl didn’t play against the Nets as the Raptors are keeping him out of back-to-backs for now as they manage his back injury. They entered Sunday’s play as the most-used lineup in the league, with 166 total minutes. And while the defence is still shaky, they are outscoring their opponents by five points per 100 possessions. They have an offensive rating of 121.5 and an assist percentage of 67.9, which would rank third and seventh in the league, respectively.

The last number is especially interesting. It would be easy to assume that lineups with Brandon Ingram would be far more reliant on his one-on-one scoring than the team’s other looks. While that is somewhat true, the starting group is marrying his skills and Rajaković’s pass/movement-heavy ethos very well. Ingram is making the correct reads in big situations, too.

Issues linger with the group’s perimeter defence, but the starting five is playing well. Hopefully Barrett’s absence is short.

A firm identity

Nobody is saying the execution has been perfect, but the Raptors know how they want to play and rarely deviate from it. Even as they have pulled back their defensive pressure, they are still operating as among the more aggressive teams in the league. Immanuel Quickley and Gradey Dick both pilfered the ball when it looked like the Nets might take their first lead of the game in the fourth quarter on Sunday.

Despite looking to run in transition, the Raptors are a top-10 team in limiting their own turnovers. They have the highest assist-to-turnover ratio in the league. They also force turnovers at a top-10 rate. They had 10 fewer turnovers than the Nets on Sunday.

No team scores frequently as they do on the fast break. They are seventh in potential assists per game and sixth in actual assists.

To paraphrase G.I. Joe, knowing who you are is half the battle. The Raptors have that down.

Unselfishness and malleability

This is the type of thing that you know when you see. There is no stress among the Raptors about who is going to take the most shots. Everyone is rowing in sync. When Quickley was going through his shooting struggles to start the year, nobody was criticizing his shot selection.

These things aren’t always quantifiable, but it’s clear the Raptors are not worried about their individual numbers. Maybe that comes because none of their starters are heading toward free agency. Maybe it’s just the right mix of players at the right times in their careers. The leaders of the team, both on the coaching staff and on the floor, have preached the right things.

There was concern about how Ingram, Barrett and Scottie Barnes would share the ball coming into the season. Well, they all came into the Nets game with usage percentages between 23 and 26. Barrett usually gets the ball off his own movement or the ball’s. Ingram is the fulcrum in the half court while Barnes makes things happen on the run.

Moreover, the Raptors are glad to play small by putting Quickley and Shead together in the backcourt and Barnes or Collin-Murray Boyles at centre. We haven’t seen Poeltl share the floor with Mamukelashvili yet, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Raptors try a bigger look sometimes soon.

Glass half emptyOpponent shooting

This has been a disagreement between basketball thinkers since analytics entered the larger discussion around the sport: How much can a team impact its opponents’ 3-point accuracy?

“If you remember the Houston Rockets a couple years ago, when they were, like, everything at the rim or 3s, you’d go into the game and tell your guys, ‘You’ve got to take away those 3s.’ And still they take 50 3s in a game,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said. “But the quality of the shot, if those shots are going to be contested or not, how you’re going to contest those shots, if you’re going to contest them on their side, on their shooting hand, all of those things have a factor or shooting percentage.”

In general, the people playing and coaching sport would like to think they have an impact on the results. The Raptors’ opponents are shooting 32.3 percent from 3, third-worst in the league. Either the Raptors have been really good at defending 3s or they’re getting very, very lucky. (Or, both.)

The Raptors came into the game ranked third in 3-point percentage, connecting on 38.5 percent of their attempts. They’re near the bottom in attempts, so they don’t have a massive advantage in makes per game compared to their opponents. Still, if everything evens out, you would expect them to be behind.

Rebounding

The Raptors are a below-average team in offensive rebounding, defensive rebounding and, accordingly, total rebounding. It has not been a massive problem on its own, but you can see how this and the above item could combine to turn the Raptors’ defence into a problem.

If their opponents start to trend higher in 3-point makes and the Raptors continue to give up more than their share of rebounds, suddenly the overall state of the defence would be an issue. Notably, the Raptors came into the Nets game grabbing 47.3 percent of available rebounds when Poeltl was off the floor and just 46 percent when Barnes sat. Those guys, it turns out, are important.

What lies ahead

We all know the Western Conference isn’t what we thought it might be heading into the season. However, there is a chance some of the West’s disasters get their acts together between now and when the Raptors play them. Toronto hasn’t played a game in the Mountain or Pacific Time Zones, and won’t until Jan. 18 against the Lakers. As it happens, that game will officially start the Raptors’ second half of the season.

The Raptors’ schedule hasn’t been cake so far. Ten teams have won less than 40 percent of their games this season, and the Raptors are now 5-1 against them. That is what good teams are supposed to do against the worst teams in the league, and the Raptors shouldn’t be penalized. If the Raptors keep that up and split the rest of the games, they will flirt with 50 wins.

However, they have played just two games against the teams with the six best records (Detroit, Oklahoma City, Denver, the Lakers, San Antonio and Houston) and lost them both decisively. They will play those teams at least 11 more times, and possibly more if they match up against the Pistons in the NBA Cup. They have defeated the Cavaliers, who visit Toronto on Monday, twice, but Cleveland was without all three of Donovan Mitchell, Jarrett Allen and Darius Garland in one of those games.

In other words, the Raptors’ toughest games are yet to come.