It started casual, not so much a hectic display of arms and limbs as a calm passionless devotion to proper positioning. If the Toronto Raptors against the Washington Wizards were a horror movie villain, they were zombies. The old-fashioned, ambling kind. Not particularly fast, but always there whenever you turn around. Not every night is going to be playoff intensity. But that doesn’t mean they have to be letdowns. 

Good teams have identities. Great teams have multiple. The Raptors may not necessarily be in that latter category (although … they may be?), but they are starting to show an adaptability that prior iterations of this group has lacked. Coming into this contest, Toronto had been a team that won by supercharged half-court offence. That wasn’t a strength in this one, at least not in the first half. So the Raptors had to find an advantage. It very early appeared that Toronto was going to win by strangling its opponent rather than with an uppercut to the chin. (Again: until it did land that uppercut and blast the Wizards into the stratosphere.)

There were individual standout moments. On the first possession of the second quarter, Washington targeted Gradey Dick. He moved his feet well through screens, stayed with the ball, and forced the possession late into the clock without any advantage gained. Scottie Barnes guarded the ball, and a timely end-of-clock double from Immanuel Quickley led to the shot-clock violation. 

Sandro Mamukelashivili picked up his third or fourth pick-six of the season. He tipped away a pass to his man and tore down the court for a full-speed layup before the help could catch up to contest. He isn’t nearing OG Anunoby territory, but by my eye test he has the most steal-to-uncontested-layup possessions since Anunoby was a Raptor. 

“I got to shout out to coach for telling me [to be] aggressive on defence. I don’t think they really view me as a 5, more of a basketball player. Which I really appreciate,” said Mamukelashvili after the game. “I know if I can’t get that steal…probably Jamal going to be there.”

Brandon Ingram got in on the action. He picked up a highlight swat as the weak-side helper. Later, he simply picked the pocket of his man, leading to a Jamal Shead assist to Mamukelashvili the other way. Ingram is enormous, and his defence wasn’t up to par early in the season. It has been improving of late, and outside of a game-saving block against the Charlotte Hornets, this saw the highest highs from Ingram on that end. 

But the highest highs almost obscured what was consistently working for Toronto. Solidity. Precision. Attention. Even as they meandered through the first half, the defence was stolid.

At one point, Jakob Poeltl bit on a pump fake from Tristan Vukcevic. Vukcevic got the step on him on the drive, but Quickley stepped into the lane, forcing the Wizard big to slow his drive for an instant, allowing Poeltl to catch up and contest the shot. Ingram swooped in to eat the rebound. 

Nothing goes in the box score on that play other than a rebound for Ingram, but it’s the type of defence that bad teams like the Wizards are generally unable to defeat. Because of Toronto’s positional awareness, Washington ended up taking fadeaway jumpers on far more possessions than a good offence would want. Toronto’s defence was more solid than highlight-worthy, but solid is more than good enough against a team like Washington. 

On another possession, Shead tried to jump a passing lane and missed the ball. His man immediately caught and drove. Toronto’s corner defender had to sink into the lane to help corral the ball. But Shead didn’t stay out of the play. He tore back to the corner to deter the pass, forcing a shot from the driver over two Raptors. Staying in the play is crucial. All teams make mistakes. Good defences don’t allow those mistakes to turn into collapses.

Toronto’s offence didn’t have its fastball in the first half. Bunnies were missed. Free throws were clanged. Far too many possessions were zero-pass hero attempts. That’s fine; nights like that happen. And it was only a series of jabs to set up the knockout combo later int he game, anyway.

To end the first half, Toronto’s offence couldn’t hit anything. The starters were playing passive, and possessions ground down without creating much of anything. Barnes stole a pass to the corner, got rid of it, and Ingram ended up with a breakaway dunk. Shots like that were common enough that Toronto took a 10-point lead to the half despite a ho-hum effort.

Toronto let go of the rope to start the second half. (It was a faux collapse.) Some easy offensive rebounds, lazy closeouts, and late contests led to a small run of offensive success for Washington. But Toronto’s offence finally cranked into second gear, with flurries of 0.5-second passing leading to open Quickley threes, or Ingram drives drawing free throws. Barnes turned to the post for some easy hook shots. Light practice. The goal didn’t really seem to be to win by 1000, but simply to win and finally rest to start the home stand. (That Toronto ended up winning by approximately a 1000 was just a byproduct of a good team playing a bad one, not because the Raptors really ever revved the engine.)

Meanwhile, Barnes’ jumper returned, as he drilled a pair of triples in the third quarter. Even without the same defensive focus in the third quarter, the starters grew the lead. Toronto isn’t just able to shapeshift its identity between games, but even between quarters. And don’t look now, but the starters are finally starting to figure it out. It’s almost impossible to be a great team if your starters lose their minutes, and if there was one blemish to Toronto’s start to the season, it was the play of the starters. That, too, has been turning around over the last handful of games.

Darko Rajakovic’s rotation is starting to crystalize. Ja’Kobe Walter checks in first for Scottie Barnes. He focuses on the defensive end and shooting when he’s open, while Barnes’ usage shifts to Quickley, most of all. Later, Toronto’s bench gunners in Shead, Dick, and Mamukelashvili check in, leaving Ingram as the sole starter. That group dials up the pace. Then Barnes checks in for Ingram, and that group really dials up the pace. And the starters return to close the quarter.

It all worked. The bench group rediscovered the immaculate defence of the first half, forcing turnovers. Shead dug into driving lanes. Barnes blind doubled, forcing wild passes straight into Dick’s hands. But the offence remained, which is the recipe for a massacre. The lead grew to 20, then 30. It felt like Toronto really didn’t have much of an interest in embarrassing its foe; the NBA Cup was within the team’s sights with a win alone. But then it went and embarrassed its foe anyway.

They finished with 48 points in the quarter, rendering the entire fourth a liminal space of Mamukelashvili driving dunks in traffic, Quickley blocks from behind, Ja’Kobe Walter assists from the floor, and other see-it-to-believe-it moments. Mamukelashvili finished as one of Toronto’s four 20-point scorers on the game.

“Our guys, they respond really well at halftime,” said Rajakovic after the game. “It was really defence that ignited all of that.”

Rajakovic spoke before the game about how the NBA Cup could be a good opportunity for a young team to experience deeper game planning and an increased intensity in the tournament. It looks like they’ll get that chance now, as the Raptors have already clinched East Group A.

“It feels amazing,” said Mamukelashvili. They took the NBA Cup seriously, and it showed.

Toronto has now won six in a row, its longest winning streak since February of 2022. The only player from that team who remains on this one is Barnes.

“I don’t even remember,” said Barnes. “It feels like a long time ago.”

It’s unclear what woke the Raptors against the Wizards. But they woke and tore into their prey in the third quarter. The Raptors may have started as ambling zombies (winning zombies), but they finished as Darth Vader: big, bad, and ready to cut off your hand for laughs.