Toronto Raptors vs Cleveland Cavaliers: Let the season begin!

It’s opening night at Scotiabank Arena! How will the Raptors do in their first game? Plus, a new way to watch Raptors games is here!

WE ARE BACK.

EVERYTHING IS PURPLE.

LET’S GO.

The Toronto Raptors play meaningful basketball today! Isn’t that wild?! After a hopeful preseason and an absolutely epic media roll out, the Raptors will welcome fans to Scotiabank Arena for the home opener tonight. They’ll play the Cleveland Cavaliers, who finished 4th in the Eastern Conference last season and will be looking to perform well again.

Toronto is 19-10 in season home openers, a stat I learned from the legend herself, Keerthika Uthayakumar. Seriously, if you’re not on the Keeks bandwagon by now, you’re doing basketball wrong. Anyway, that’s an impressive stat from the franchise, something that shows the advantage playing in a rambunctious Scotiabank Arena environment.

It will be interesting to see if the preseason excitement, 30th anniversary atmosphere, and “prove em wrong’ energy of this team will boost them to a win. Most are predicting this team will win between 20 and 30 games in the entire season, with a few straggling optimists going into the 30-40 range. The Raptors’ schedule is deathly to kick off the season, and any wins they steal will be appreciated.

Before we get into a few key factors that may allow Toronto to improve their home opener to 20-10, let’s talk game viewing plans. We all know tickets to the Raptors are at prices that aren’t really ideal for a large population of fans, yet the atmosphere of watching with buddies is unmatched. We have a solution for you!

Raptors HQ will be streaming on Playback for select games this season! You can join our hosts (for free!) to watch Raptors games with a community of fans. Whether it’s to cheer together or lament together, or compare tankathon results, we can do it together.

It’s as simple as singing up for a (free!!) Playback account, and then heading to the Raptors HQ viewing link when the time comes.

For the home opener, Jay and JD will be holding it down — and it’s never a dull moment between these two!

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Here are the game details:

Time: 7:30 pm ET

Where to watch: Sportsnet

Lineups:

Raptors: Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickly, Jakob Poeltl, Gradey Dick, Ochai Agbaji (maybe? let’s see)

Cavaliers: Evan Mobley, Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen, Isaac Okoro

Injuries:

Raptors: RJ Barrett — shoulder (OUT), Kelly Olynyk — back (OUT), Bruce Brown — knee (OUT), Ja’Kobe Walter — shoulder (OUT)

Cavaliers: Max Strus — hip (OUT), Emoni Bates — knee (OUT)

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Alright, let’s get down to business. Are the Raptors favoured to win this game? Nope. Will that be the case most of the time this season? YUP.

Yet, nothing is impossible?

With the cleanest slate we can possibly have, let’s break down a few things Toronto can do to give themselves the best chance they can to win tonight:

Scottie Barnes Leadership

We all know this is Scottie’s team now. He missed the end of last season after getting injured, so we haven’t seen him in full action since March 1st of 2024. A lot has happened for Scottie since then. Professionally, personally… you know.

One of the biggest things was him signing his huge extension. Proof that this franchise believes in him — we also knew this.

Scottie needs to come out swinging this season. He’s talked about working on his communication and leadership skills, but he also needs to lead by example. The future of this core depends on Scottie taking another leap in skill this season.

Immanuel Quickley’s Moment

While this will be IQ’s first full game this season, since he missed the preseason with a wrist injury, don’t expect him to be 100%. Yet, he will definitely have an increase in responsibility. While IQ stepped into his starter role upon being traded, he kinda got to play the “got traded” card for the rest of the year. Not that he ever did, but it was a thought.

Now, he’s had a whole summer of time with this team, staff, and system. You can tell he feels more comfortable, and he is very excited to get out there. He has a lot more to grow and it’s exciting to think about how that may happen over the course of the season.

While his role as a point guard is definitely to facilitate — and has been working with Poeltl more on how to maximize on that — IQ will be urged to shoot a lot as well. We saw some great shooting from him last season at times between him missing games, so that will definitely be something to emphasize.

For tonight though, he is still ramping up from a wrist injury, so I am not going to demand too much!

Low Pressure

Speaking of pressure, let’s not have any! In my opinion, the expectations for this team are pretty low. If they don’t make the playoffs, that’s what a lot of people are expecting. If they make it to the play-in or even the playoffs, that will be a surprise!

Whether you think it’s a pleasant surprise because more basketball, or a bad surprise because you’re on team tank — that’s for you to decide.

Ultimately, I think the best results will come with low pressure/expectations. See what works! Try new things! Have fun!

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So excited this season is finally getting started! Make sure to join us on Playback for the season opener!