The Toronto Raptors didn’t exactly get showered with primetime love, but they did land seven nationally televised games this season - and a few of them actually have some bite.
There’s no mystery why the Raptors are often fighting for visibility. They’re the lone Canadian team in a league dominated by U.S. markets.
Still, coming off a 46-win 2025-26 season, they have enough going on to justify a little more attention. The schedule gives them seven chances in the spotlight, and some of those matchups come with real intrigue while others feel like they were picked more out of necessity than excitement.
At the bottom of the list sits the early-March trip to South Florida for two games against the Heat at Kaseya Center. It comes on the second night of a back-to-back, so there’s a real chance the national audience won’t see either team at full strength.
Miami is expected to be better in 2026-27 after landing Giannis Antetokounmpo in a blockbuster deal with the Milwaukee Bucks, but there’s no guarantee the Heat are a true playoff team. They finished in the lottery last season and haven’t done much to add depth, which makes this feel like the least appealing of Toronto’s seven TV spots.
Another game that looks more functional than flashy comes right before the All-Star break. The NBA has a five-game slate on that Tuesday, with only two of those games outside the West Coast, so NBC needed an East Coast opener for its doubleheader.
That’s how the Raptors ended up in the mix. The Bucks were the other option not selected, and they’ll be starting a new era without Antetokounmpo against the Cavaliers.
It’s almost the default choice, but it still carries some appeal.
The first Thursday of the 2027 calendar year brings Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball and the Minnesota Timberwolves to Scotiabank Arena, and that one has the kind of energy that can pop on national TV. It’s one of 12 games on the NBA schedule that night, but Toronto and Minnesota still stand out as a compelling matchup. The Wolves are taking a swing by bringing in Ball to create one of the league’s more explosive backcourts, while the Raptors will lean on their frontcourt and Scottie Barnes.
Toronto also gets a January date with the Celtics, and that one has the feel of a straight-up rivalry game. Boston may not have Jalen Brown anymore, but the Celtics still project as one of the East’s better teams. The Raptors dropped all four meetings with them last season, so this is a chance to push back a little.
The late-season meeting with the 76ers carries a different kind of tension. This won’t be Toronto’s first game against LeBron James with Philadelphia, but it still has plenty of juice, especially with less than a month left in the regular season.
If both teams are in the hunt for one of the final Eastern Conference playoff spots, the stakes could be real. The Raptors and Sixers finished within a game of each other last season, and Philly’s summer moves - adding LeBron and Brown - make them one of Toronto’s biggest threats in the standings.
The NBA Cup matchup with the Pistons is another one that feels like it could matter well beyond the event itself. Detroit won 60 games last season and finished as the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, while Toronto came one game away from seeing them in a second-round series before falling in seven games in the first round. That backdrop gives this one a postseason feel, even if it’s technically part of the Cup.
And then there’s the Cleveland game that lands on the national stage. It won’t be Toronto’s first visit to Rocket Arena this season, but it will be the first one with a national audience watching.
The Raptors should have extra motivation every time they see the Cavaliers after what happened last year. Toronto swept Cleveland 4-0 in the regular season, but that success didn’t carry over to the playoffs.
The Raptors would love to get back to that regular-season version of the matchup around the halfway point of the year.
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Leonards path back into a Raptors-focused conversation still runs through the league office, with the trade from the Clippers under review and the timing of a resolution still not fully clear. The expectation is that the matter will be settled before next season begins, but there remains a chance it stretches into the year, which would leave Leonards status hanging over the calendar and make that first Clippers date in Toronto feel even heavier. [Read more 🡒]