Last-Minute News, Rumors, Reports before Raptors Wizards Game

The last time Kawhi Leonard played Washington in a Raptors jersey, it went to double overtime. He scored 41 points, grabbed 11 rebounds, and the Raptors won 140-38. On Friday, he goes back there, and this is not the Washington Wizards team that was overtly tanking last season. They are different, and they are hungry. This squad has Anthony Davis, who is looking to get a contract extension, So he's playing like a bit of a maniac right now, especially in game one for his Wizards debut. They have Trae Young and they have a multitude of young guys that are talented, that are looking to establish their names out there in the NBA. And I think one of the more underrated squads out there in the entire NBA. So in this video, we'll break down the current injury report for both sides entering this game, as well as what to look for from this new look Washington Wizards squad. but a couple Canadians out there on the squad as well, which is always a fun thing to watch. What the three keys, in my opinion, are going to be for the Toronto Raptors to get this W and predictions for game two of the regular season. Let's start with the Toronto Raptors for this injury report, as it's very short. The Raptors, once again, are dealing with a relatively healthy team. Nate Biddle is the only guy that's out for this squad with his right foot fracture. And Malachi Smith, our other two-way option, is down with the Raptors 9-0-5. Kawhi Leonard is not on the injury report, right now, so everyone's eyes are going to be on how many minutes Kawhi Leonard plays, especially if this game is closer than the one against Chicago. On Wednesday, he played 24 minutes, scored 23 points, and even though he wasn't super efficient from the field, he did pretty well everything out there on the court. Was 11-11 from the free throw line, got boards, got steals, played great defense. Very nice start, re-debut for Kawhi Leonard on the Toronto Raptors. And that wasn't just because it was a blowout. Kawhi came out and said that 24 minutes was the plan. And here's the part I love. I've brought it up over the last couple of videos, but even when it was a blowout and Darko said, hey, you can sit out, you can relax, Kawhi Leonard Kawhi said no I want to go out there I want to get my reps and I want to play yes like we had a plan for him but he was like coach like you know I would like to play a little bit more uh there so I mean game was kind of like at that point a little bit out of the reach but wanted just to save him and he was like no I want to go back so I put him back so my guess is Friday there will be something in the similar range of minutes I predicted 30 minutes for game one but Given the fact the plan was 24 minutes for that game against the Chicago Bulls, I expect it to be something similar tonight against the Washington Wizards. Maybe if the game is close, especially where the other game was fairly light, Kawhi Leonard goes over a little bit, but I don't expect him to push him this early on in the season. Now for the Wizards. The big one is AJ DeBonsa. The number one pick is out with a left ankle sprain. He hurt it in their last preseason game, missed the opener, and Brian Keefe says that he'll miss Friday as well. In four preseason games, he averaged 12.8 points per night and 1.5 steals, so doing it on the defensive end as well. Keefe's calling it a day-to-day injury, so it might be the only time the Raptors see the Wizards this season without him. Also out for the Wizards is Tristan Vucevic, as well as Jameer Watkins, who's going to be coming back from ACL surgery. And Felix Okupara is questionable with an illness. So the Raptors are basically coming in with full strength and the Washington Wizards do have a lot of their top guys a lot of their steady vets but are missing the one guy that they're really building rebuilding this team around right now but even without him in game one of the regular season this team did something that they couldn't do all of last year here's how bad it was in Washington last season 15 and 67 then 18 and 64 and then 17 and 65 last season the worst record in the entire NBA so in the middle of last season they said enough is enough. And in January, they traded CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert to the Atlanta Hawks for Trey Young. Then in February, they went out and got Anthony Davis from the Dallas Mavericks in an eight player trade where Washington sent out Chris Middleton, AJ Johnson, Malachi Brahman, and Marvin Bagley in two first round picks and three second round picks. I also want to note the Raptors were deeply in those sweepstakes, but the Wizards kind of came out of nowhere and stole Anthony Davis from the Mavericks. Another funny part about that trade It is Chris Middleton who they traded away to get Davis came right back in the summer in a sign and trade deal and he played for them on Wednesday. Then of course the Washington Wizards came out and they won the NBA draft lottery and selected AJ DeBonsa first overall. They also beefed up the rest of the roster picking up DeAndre Ayton from the Los Angeles Lakers and Jaden Hardy and two second round picks. They also added Trey Mann who's always a pretty fun player to watch and gave Trey Young a new deal four years 212 million dollars. Now, not everybody loved that deal. Trae Young played 15 games last season total between Atlanta and Washington, and on Wednesday, he did have 13 assists, so that's solid stuff there, but went 0-6 from the three-point line and always has those question marks about his ability to perform on the defensive end. ESPN gave Washington's offseason a D, and that's not counting DeBonsa, but Vegas has them jumping up to 35.5 wins this summer, so that's more than double what they did last year. And also one thing I want to note, if you're enjoying the daily Toronto Raptors coverage we're putting out here on Raptors Digest, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss a single thing going on with this team as we are currently very, very close to our goal of 45,000 subscribers. Right now, our number, we are at 44,610. So if you're tuning in the vids, you're watching, haven't hit that sub button just yet, hit it down below. It's completely free and it means the world to me. but let's take a look at the opener for three quarters honestly the washington wizards look like the washington wizards of the past few years they missed 18 of their first 22 threes and milwaukee led by three going into the fourth and that's a squad in their own right not a lot of talent but then DeAndre Ayton had a momentum swinging dunk and the wizards went on a little run they scored 21 to 4 against the milwaukee bucks and won that fourth quarter 38 to 23 winning the game by 12. Anthony Davis had 34 points and 12 rebounds in his first NBA game in 286 days. The Wizards fans were also chanting MVP for Anthony Davis, which is pretty wild given the fact that not a lot of people thought he'd even suit up for the Washington Wizards. But jokes aside, when Anthony Davis does play, he is still very good at basketball and he's only played 71 games total in the past two seasons, but he will be suiting up Friday against the Raptors. So this team is built around two stars that haven't played much of the past couple of seasons but are suiting up on friday and as well as a rookie that will not be suiting up but i'm sure we'll see him a bunch of times out there in the future but this leads us to a few numbers that are very important heading into friday's game and the first number is 27 that's how many turnovers the raptors forced against the chicago bulls on wednesday they had 15 steals and scored 35 points off of those turnovers and 34 on the fast break sure chicago bulls is the team that if they create a lot of steals that really fuels their their offense so being strong with the ball making sure that they're getting shots every possession and not turning over and the washington Wizards love to give the basketball away last season they turned it over 15.7 times a game which was 28th in the NBA. And they gave up 17.7 fast break points again, 29th. And for context, the lower you are in the rankings, the worst it is. And the Raptors are built to take advantage. They scored the most fast break points in the entire NBA last year. And if Wednesday night is any indication of what the Raptors are going to do this season, they're going to run that strategy pack. But the catch is on Wednesday, the Washington Wizards also played and they only turned the ball over 13 times. So we'll see what identity Washington has going into this year as Trae Young only had one turnover and 13 assists. If the Wizards end up playing like last year, this game is going to be over early. The Raptors are going to cook. It's going to be just like the night in Chicago or against Chicago in Toronto. But if Trae Young is able to take care of the ball, the Wizards aren't doing too many of the mistakes a lot of young teams make, then this should be more of a game. Now, the second important number heading into this game worries me a little bit more than the first one, and that number is 70. That's how many points the Wizards scored in the paint against the Milwaukee Bucks. 70, and they also took 41 free throws. Anthony Davis went 11 for 14 from the line, and Trey went 12 for 16, and that's exactly where the Raptors were sloppy on Wednesday against the Chicago Bulls. They committed 29 fouls, and the Bulls shot 47 free throws. You can get away with that when it's against a team that shot 4 for 36 from the three-point line, but you can't do it against Anthony Davis. Jakubo had four fouls in 22 minutes against the Bulls. And if he's in foul trouble early, CMB and Trace Jackson Davis are going to have to guard Anthony Davis. And that's going to be a big ask, especially where they're a little bit undersized. And the last number I'm looking at is about this building. The Toronto Raptors, the last time they played Washington on December 26th, they lost by 21, 138 to 117. and to a team that won 17 games all year last year. Keyshawn George ended up cooking us that game, scoring 23 points, Kulal Valley had 21, and Alex Rhad had 15 on 7 of 9 shooting. All three of those guys started on Wednesday for the Wizards, so Toronto did win the other two meetings last year, but that's one thing that they should look at as, you know, get some revenge for that game that they had last season. And another thing to note on that, Kawhi Leonard was not on this team last year, so this is a much different Raptors squad as it is with the Washington Wizards. Kawhi is 17-2 all-time against the Washington Wizards once he faces off against that team, and that's the best record against any team he's played against more than 10 times. Vegas still sees this thing as closer than you'd think. The Raptors were a 9.5-point favorite against the Bulls, but against the Wizards, it's only 3.5 points, and 4.5 depending on where you're looking, but the Toronto Raptors, they're favorites, but not as big of a margin against it was the Chicago Bulls. And before I give my take on who's going to win this game or not, there are two Raptors I'm specifically watching other than Kawhi. The first is RJ Barrett, because I think he gets Trey Young on the defensive end in this game. On Wednesday, when Darko put RJ Barrett on Josh Giddey to start the game, Giddey finished with two points and one of ten shooting from the field, with five turnovers and the Bulls didn't get a lead for a single second. Darko said after the game that RJ was picking up Giddey full court and making every dribble difficult. that's the job again this Friday and it's against a much better scorer Trey Young has also played the Raptors 22 times in his career and averaged 26 points per game with a high of 42 so if RJ can make him work on every single one of those possessions the Raptors are going to lose the sorry the Wizards are going to lose their engine the second is Emmanuel Quickly who in that game against the bulls was absolutely on fire he's a plus 38 on wednesday scoring 23 points 7 assists and he made four of nine of his three-point shots. The rest of the team went six of 22. That matters on Friday because the Wizards let teams shoot 37% from three last season, which is 24th in the league. If quickly shot is falling, Anthony Davis can't just sit in the paint and wait for Scottie and Kawhi to drive in there. So here's my take. Koulibaly is going to be an X-factor out there for the Wizards. He played really well out there on Wednesday, had four steals, two blocks, very effective on the defensive end, and he'll probably spend most of the night guarding Kawhi Leonard or Scottie Barnes. if the Wizards start playing gritty if they make this thing ugly it will start with him now as I am with most Raptors games even though I think the Wizards are going to put up a tougher fight than the Chicago Bulls did on game one I believe in this trio of Kawhi Leonard Scottie Barnes and Colin Murray Boiles that's right our death lineup are going to be effective at switching and playing speeding up the game for the Washington Wizards and not in the way that will help that Washington team you know execute in transition they're going to try to rush Trey Young get the ball out of his hands and see if guys like Koulibaly and guys like Sarr can actually punish us out there on the offensive end. If they can, this will be a lot closer, but I think there's a good chance the Raptors swarming defense is going to fluster Washington and they're going to be able to run away with this thing. But of course there is a good chance Anthony Davis starts cooking in the paint. So a lot of, a lot of a leveling up from game one is going to have to be done from Jakob Pirtle to make sure that Anthony Davis doesn't, uh, you know, swing this thing in Washington's favorite but let me know in the comment section down below what are your expectations for this game against the Wizards who do you think is going to carry their team more Kawhi Leonard Scottie Barnes Anthony Davis Trae Young lots of big names out there in this game I won't have a watch along for you tonight I don't think I'm going to try to go live before the game but if I can't there will be a post game coming out later tonight or tomorrow but in the meantime definitely check out this video from all the latest news regarding the Toronto Raptors because it has been picking up since that game against Chicago.