Anthony Davis has spent plenty of time making life miserable for the Raptors, but Toronto finally flipped the script.
After Davis opened his first full season with the Washington Wizards by piling up 34 points, 12 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 block and 2 steals in a 12-point win over the Milwaukee Bucks, the Raptors’ defense dragged him back to earth. Toronto held the 6’10” ten-time All-Star to 9 points on 25% shooting, along with 9 rebounds, 2 blocks and 1 steal in 32 minutes, and walked away with a 10-point win.
For a team that has often had to scrap against bigger frontcourts, this was a real statement. Scottie Barnes and Collin Murray-Boyles gave up size, but they played Davis physically and kept him from settling into the paint. Murray-Boyles did run into foul trouble, finishing with five fouls in 17 minutes, but the Raptors still did enough to blunt one of the league’s toughest coverages.
And this wasn’t some one-off miracle. It was the first time since November 2022 that Toronto held Davis below 20 points.
In the six games after that, he reached 41 points once and posted a double-double in five of them. Even last season, with the Raptors finishing with the fifth-best defensive rating in the NBA and 46 wins, Davis still went for 25 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks and 3 steals in a win against Toronto.
The challenge was always going to be obvious. Washington can throw Davis, plus two seven-footers in Alex Sarr and Deandre Ayton, at opponents.
Toronto’s primary front line leans much more on Barnes, Murray-Boyles and Jakob Poeltl, a far smaller rotation on paper. That mismatch only makes Toronto’s work against Davis look more impressive.
More broadly, the Raptors’ defense has come out swinging through two games. They’ve held the Bulls and Wizards to a league-best 34.8% shooting from the field and 21.9% from three. They’ve also forced a league-high 50 turnovers and turned those into 57 points, just one shy of the NBA’s best mark.
Around the league, Toronto’s defense was already supposed to be a problem after replacing Brandon Ingram with Kawhi Leonard. If this group ends up with the NBA’s best defense, or even lands in the top three, nobody will be shocked. The hard part now is keeping that edge all season long - and carrying it against the best teams, too.
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Darko Rajakovi pointed to that resilience afterward, and it is the sort of message fans have been waiting to hear after seasons where Toronto too often had to be perfect to win. The shot-making will come and go, but the Raptors showed they can stay in control when the jumper is not falling, which is a meaningful sign this group can win in different ways as the schedule starts to tighten. [Read more 🡒]