Momentum is a fickle beast in the NBA.
One moment it’s on your side, the next it’s doing everything to escape your grasp, and then all of a sudden, an about-face to once again accept your embrace.
So it’s easy to understand how the emotions of a fanbase often dance on a knife’s edge between passion and ire. It’s hard to keep the two feelings separate when things keep changing. Even through an 82-game season that can sometimes feel sluggish, like during the slow, cold march toward the all-star break.
The 2025-26 Toronto Raptors, for instance, have enjoyed both the warm comfort of momentum — winning nine-straight games in November — and the brisk chill of its absence, playing largely .500 ball (14-12 from the start of December) since being hit with a smattering of injuries.
Zooming in even tighter, the Raptors opened a five-game road trip last Sunday by losing to the Los Angeles Lakers, with little to no answers against a bottom-10 defence that junked things up and held them to 93 points. A loss that also came right after Toronto fell short in overtime to the other L.A. team and meant it had gone 3-3 after stacking a trio of wins right before. There was clearly a sense as though momentum had started slipping away yet again, just as it had when the Raptors went 6-10 between the aforementioned nine- and three-game win streaks.
Which is why Friday’s 110-98 win against a surging Portland Trail Blazers team — an NBA-best 9-2 in January entering the game — was that much more timely. It meant that since losing to the Lakers, the Raptors had rattled off three wins and recaptured some much-needed momentum — bringing them to a much more respectable 6-7 against the Western Conference and an even better 28-19 on the season, good for third in the East.
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And while each of those three wins could be poked and prodded for faults, at the end of the day, for a team that won just 30 games last year and is currently navigating its worst injury stretch of the season, stacking victories is the ultimate goal.
Or, as Raptors play-by-play legend Matt Devlin put it on the broadcast: “It doesn’t have to be a Picasso.”
And by golly, it was not.
The Raptors maintained a seven-point lead at halftime thanks to the Blazers — already a bottom 10 defence — looking extra-listless without leading scorer Deni Avdija, who was out due to a back strain. Portland opened the game shooting 2-of-20 from the field and 0-of-10 from distance, but collected enough scraps (plus-four on the offensive glass) and got a strong 13-point second quarter from London, Ont.’s Shaedon Sharpe to limit the damage.
Immanuel Quickley led that first-half effort for Toronto, starting the game a strong 4-of-4 before finishing with 20 points, eight rebounds, seven assists and two steals.
Yet it was in the third quarter that the Trail Blazers threw their best punch, going into a zone out of the break. And their patience — waiting till the second half despite implementing zone at a top-five rate in the NBA — paid off. The Raptors were flustered by the 1-2-2 scheme, which proved far more effective than the Kings’ mediocre version of zone previously.
Jumpers clanked, drives stopped short, and the Blazers turned what was once a 13-point deficit down to 76-74 entering the fourth. It helped that they made 6-of-14 triples. Portland is a team that very much lives and dies by the three, fourth in attempts this season, but last in percentage. Yet for 12 minutes on Saturday, their outside shooting is what breathed life into a comeback.
That was before the Raptors won the fourth quarter 34-24, riding some in-game momentum provided by the starters — all of whom finished with at least 10 points for a second consecutive game — to punctuate a strong stretch of performances before they visit Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the champion Oklahoma City Thunder.
There’s no telling how long the Raptors can keep hold of the elusive momentum they’ve carved out thanks to a 3-1 showing on the West Coast trip heading into Sunday, but for now, they’ve got a firm grasp.
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Better late than never
It wasn’t a typical night for the Raptors’ two-headed snake, as Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram started the game a combined 1-of-8 from the field for just two points.
Ingram got it going sooner than Barnes did, chipping in seven points in the second and nine in the third to wash away a scoreless (0-of-3) opening frame en route to 20 points. It was also encouraging that while he eased into a ho-hum offensive night by his standards, the lanky bucket-better impacted the game elsewhere. He sniffed out rebounds (seven) and was disruptive on the defensive end, even securing two steals and a block.
But it wasn’t until Barnes finally showed up at the Moda Centre that the Raptors truly seized the victory. The 24-year-old entered the fourth quarter with just four points on 2-of-9 shooting, but had his fingerprints all over the final frame to the tune of 11 points on 4-of-6 from the field.
After mammoth seven-foot-two sophomore Donovan Clingan grabbed his seventh offensive rebound — part of 16 boards — and layed it back in to give Portland just its second lead of the night, it felt as though Toronto had let go of the rope. Instead, Barnes snatched it back with two tough buckets right at the rim, including a dunk over Clingan, and then an assist to Sandro Mamukelashvili for his third triple of the night. That effort flipped the brief two-point deficit right back into a five-point lead on the path to victory.
That doesn’t even include his work on the defensive end, racking up three blocks to total six on the night. His final two came on the final possession of the game, denying a couple last ditch efforts from the Blazers to avoid scoring fewer than 100 points for the sixth time this season. So while Barnes’ streak of 20-plus scoring games was snapped at five, his herculean effort late was a good alternative.
Mamu mania
The big Georgian has steadily made a strong case to be one of the most impactful free agent signings in franchise history. With another hyper-efficient outing of 22 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field (4-of-5 in the fourth) and 3-of-6 from deep, Mamukelashvili has now scored at least 20 in three of the last four games. He kept making Clingan pay on Friday whenever the slow-footed big man sagged into drop coverage, both by attacking downhill (6-of-9 in the paint) or letting it fly from distance.
There’s no telling when Jakob Poeltl will return to the lineup, as there’s been radio silence since the Austrian big man saw a back specialist in Toronto on Thursday. And although rookie Collin Murray-Boyles was upgraded to questionable pre-game on Friday, he was ruled out due to his thumb sprain/contusion. So while the centre rotation remains razor thin, performances like the ones Mamukelashvili has stacked together are that much more valuable.
And certainly the kind that ought to get him paid handsomely this summer should he (when he) explores free agency.
Rock Chalk, Jayhawk
There’s still plenty of time until March Madness, but for two former Kansas Jayhawks, they’re likely far more focused on February and the impending trade deadline. There’s no guarantee either Gradey Dick or Ochai Agbaji get moved, but their names have been routinely tossed into pretend trade packages for weeks now, and for good reason.
Neither has been able to escape the Raptors’ logjam of young wings, nor find much consistency. Which is why the duo combining for 20 points on 9-of-13 shooting and plus-13 was definitely a step in the right direction.
The two youngsters provided major relief minutes for a still short-handed Raptors team, injecting plenty of energy on both ends — Dick more on offence with timely zone-busting triples, and Agbaji on defence as he helped hold Sharpe to eight points in the second half on 4-of-10 shooting — and even connecting on a sweet Jayhawk-to-Jayhawk lob in transition.
National attention
The NBA announced on Friday that the Raptors-Orlando Magic game on Jan. 30 had been flexed into the national TV spot that night, set to be broadcast on ESPN in the United States. For those curious, the Eastern Conference matchup bumped the Memphis Grizzlies taking on the New Orleans Pelicans out of the spotlight.
Yet another example of how fast momentum can change in the NBA. On one hand, it’s an indictment on the teams no longer set to star in primetime, considering Ja Morant versus Zion Williamson would’ve been appointment viewing a few seasons ago — now taking a backseat to a budding rivalry between Barnes and Paolo Banchero.
On the other hand, it’s proof of the Raptors swift turnaround. Now just two victories shy of their 30-win mark from a season ago, with over three months remaining in the regular season. All of which has clearly been noticed south of the border and subsequently rewarded with a bit more attention, after coming into the season with just two U.S. nationally televised games, which were tied for the fewest in the NBA.
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