Raptors\u2019 series against the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> on Saturday. Quickley strained his right hamstring in the Raptors\u2019 final game of the year against the Brooklyn Nets. Quickley played 17 minutes in the first half of the game before not returning for the second half.<\/p>\nQuickley missed eight games in a row heading into the final week of the season because of plantar fasciitis in his right foot before returning on April 7, as the Raptors needed a strong finish to avoid the Play-In Tournament.<\/p>\n
He indicated Friday that he would have missed more time due to the plantar fasciitis had it occurred earlier in the season, but there is no certainty that his foot injury led to his hamstring injury. It was clear, however, that Quickley was well short of full health.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to play, not even for myself, (but) for my teammates,\u201d Quickley said Friday. \u201cI feel like even the couple games at the end of the season, I was \u2026 really banged up,\u201d Quickley said Friday, later adding, \u201cI know how much this means to our team, to our group, (I was) just trying to be out there for my guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quickley participated in just individual workouts heading into Saturday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s improving,\u201d Raptors coach Darko Rajakovi\u0107 said. \u201cEvery day, he\u2019s getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Raptors went with different lineups in Quickley\u2019s absence, with backup guard Jamal Shead and reserve wing Ja\u2019Kobe Walter the most common players to get promoted. Shead will start in Quickley\u2019s place against Cleveland and will likely get the biggest share of the defensive assignment on Cavs star Donovan Mitchell.<\/p>\n
The Raptors are one of the weaker 3-point-shooting teams in the playoffs, with Quickley the most dangerous player from deep on the roster. He averaged 16.4 points and 5.9 assists per game in 70 games this year, shooting 37.4 percent from 3 and making a team-high 2.5 3s per game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shooting piece, the speed: The guy\u2019s a heck of a player,\u201d Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said. \u201cI\u2019m sure Darko (Rajakovi\u0107) would agree with this: He\u2019s a big reason they captured the fifth seed.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Quickley was out with his foot injury, Scottie Barnes took on a bigger role as a playmaker, averaging 10.6 assists over the eight games, up from his season average of 5.9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 The Toronto Raptors will be without their starting point guard to begin the NBA playoffs. Immanuel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99,2970],"class_list":{"0":"post-592109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-toronto-raptors"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}