The Toronto Raptors host the Orlando Magic on Wednesday night, October 28 at Scotiabank Arena, and they will do it without Kawhi Leonard. The Raptors announced on Tuesday that Leonard will be sidelined at least one week with swelling in his left knee, a stretch that starts with this game and covers the next four games on the schedule.
Toronto enters the night at 2-1 after its first loss of the season, a 117-94 defeat against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Minneapolis on Sunday, October 25. Tipoff on Wednesday is 7:30 p.m. ET, with the game on TSN in Canada. For the Raptors, the week ahead is now a test of depth: two home dates with Orlando, then a road back to back against the Los Angeles Lakers on November 1 and the Los Angeles Clippers on November 2, all of them currently set to be played without their biggest name.
Leonard Sits With Knee Swelling
Leonard was a late scratch on Sunday, added to the injury report about an hour before tipoff in Minnesota, and Ja’Kobe Walter took his place in the starting lineup. The imaging news since then has been mixed in the best way and the frustrating way. An MRI showed no structural damage, and the team said imaging revealed no acute injury, but Leonard will go through a treatment and rehabilitation program and be re-evaluated in one week. Reporting from ESPN’s Shams Charania has suggested the absence could run to several weeks as Toronto ramps him back up.
The numbers from his short start explain why the caution matters. Leonard, 35, played the first two games of the season and averaged 19.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.5 steals in 26.0 minutes a night, but he shot 12 of 37 from the field, 32.4 percent, and missed 10 of his 14 three point attempts. This is the player who led Toronto to the 2019 NBA title and won two Finals MVP awards, and he has a long history of knee issues. Toronto’s position is clear even if the timeline is not: there is no structural problem to fix, so the job is to get the swelling down and keep it down.
The immediate cost is four games. The team timeline has him missing both Orlando visits this week, on Wednesday and again on Friday, October 30, plus the Los Angeles trip that follows. His status gets its next official update at the re-evaluation next week, and the club’s official injury report for Wednesday confirms him out against the Magic.
Barnes Looks For A Response
If Leonard’s absence was the headline on Sunday, Scottie Barnes owned the wrong kind of box score. Barnes went scoreless in Minnesota, missing all 12 of his shots, including all five of his three point attempts, in 28 minutes. He still finished with three rebounds, three assists, four steals and one block, and it was his first scoreless game since 2023, when he failed to score against the Charlotte Hornets. Through three games he is averaging 17.0 points, 7.7 rebounds and 4.3 assists.
It is what it is. Find ways to get back and still acknowledge that they did a fine job defensively. Just come out with something positive. Obviously, I missed a lot of wide-open shots. All my threes were wide open.
Barnes did not hide from the night, pointing to wide open looks that would not fall and to Minnesota help defence that kept him away from the rim. Head coach Darko Rajakovic is expected to lean on Barnes, RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley to carry the offence against Orlando. Barrett has been Toronto’s most reliable scorer so far, leading the team at 21 points per game on 51.0 percent shooting, while Quickley leads the club at five assists per game. Toronto’s first two results showed what this group can do at full speed, a 135-92 home win over the Chicago Bulls on October 21 and a 112-102 win at the Washington Wizards on October 23.
Orlando Arrives Short-Handed Too
The Magic come into Scotiabank Arena dealing with their own injury list. Orlando’s report for this game lists Paolo Banchero out with an ankle sprain and Jalen Suggs out with a knee issue, along with Jonathan Isaac, Noah Penda and Izaiya Nelson. Losing Banchero and Suggs strips Orlando of its primary scorer and its point of attack defender on the same night, and it shifts the matchup toward Toronto’s defensive pressure, the part of the Raptors game that travelled even in the Minnesota loss.
That makes Wednesday a genuine opportunity rather than a damage limitation exercise. Toronto is at home, Orlando is missing its best player, and the Raptors have had two full days to reset after Sunday. The flip side is just as real: without Leonard, Toronto has no margin for another cold night from Barnes, and the rotation minutes behind the starters get tested immediately. A win puts the Raptors at 3-1 with a second Orlando game to come on Friday. A loss, with the Lakers and Clippers waiting on the road, turns a one week injury into the defining stretch of the young season.
