Brandon Ingram helps Raptors stay hot

TORONTO – Brandon Ingram knew he had Pascal Siakam right where he wanted him.

Ingram and Siakam had been battling one-on-one as time was winding down in the fourth quarter of Wednesday night’s game between the Toronto Raptors and the Indiana Pacers. With the game tied 95-95 and Siakam defending against him, Ingram drilled a 14-foot pull-up jump shot, putting the Raptors up by two with 0.6 seconds left on the clock.

“I knew he was in foul trouble, and I knew he didn’t want to be overly aggressive, so he was at my mercy at that point,” said Ingram. “I just wanted to be super aggressive, super aggressive.

“I saw he kept backing up and I just kept being aggressive and getting to my spots.”

After a full timeout, Montreal’s Bennedict Mathurin missed a 26-foot bank shot for the Pacers, ending the game.

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Ingram finished with 26 points and eight rebounds as the Raptors won their ninth straight game. It was his first game-winning shot since the New Orleans Pelicans traded him to Toronto on Feb. 6.

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“Everybody knows why BI is here, and what he does for our team, and there’s no secret there,” said head coach Darko Rajakovic. “He’s doing not just a great job of scoring in those situations, but also play making.

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“He’s showed it over and over this season.”

The Raptors are first in the Atlantic Division, two games up on the New York Knicks, and second in the Eastern Conference, 1 1/2 games behind the Detroit Pistons.

Toronto finished the group stage of the Emirates NBA Cup a perfect 4-0. That, along with the Milwaukee Bucks’ 106-103 loss to the Miami Heat earlier Wednesday, clinched a top-two seed and home court in the quarterfinals of the in-season tournament.

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Ingram and Rajakovic said the Raptors are not paying any attention to their win streak, but the 28-year-old forward said that the in-season tournament is helping Toronto prepare for a playoff run.

“It builds confidence,” he said in a post-game conference. “It’s kind of sort of an early playoff game, trying to battle for something.

“It’s all experience for what we want.”

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Scottie Barnes had a double-double with 24 points and 10 rebounds for a banged-up Toronto squad. Immanuel Quickley added 15 points, six assists and five rebounds.

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Toronto had an uncharacteristically bad game from three-point range, going 5-for-26 (19.2 per cent) from beyond the arc. The Raptors’ three-point percentage heading into the game was 37.8 per cent, tied with the Denver Nuggets for sixth best in the NBA.

“You have to win in different ways,” said Quickley. “You’ve got to win when you don’t shoot well, you’ve got to win sometimes when you turn the ball over, you’ve got to win ugly.

“There’s 82 games in the season, you’re not going to always shoot the ball well, but you can always play defence. You can always bring energy, effort and that’s what we did tonight.”

Toronto backup forward Gradey Dick left the court in the first quarter and did not return after taking a hard fall while going up for an offensive rebound. Rajakovic said after the game that Dick was fine, but had to be held out of the game to observe the league’s concussion protocol.

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The Raptors announced earlier Wednesday that swingman RJ Barrett of Mississauga, Ont., would be out for at least another week with a sprained knee.

TJ McConnell came off the bench with 16 points, seven rebounds and six assists as Indiana (2-16) lost its third straight. Jarace Walker had 13 points and was a rebound shy of a double-double.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 26, 2025.