FINAL: Toronto Raptors 125, LA Clippers 118
The Toronto Raptors tied their franchise record with 47 fourth-quarter points on Monday night, beating the LA Clippers 125-118 at Intuit Dome in Inglewood after trailing by 16 points, and by 13 entering the fourth. The full story of the comeback itself is in iimiTV’s breaking report on the Raptors tying the record against the Clippers. Toronto did it on the second night of a back-to-back, without two starters, with Immanuel Quickley scoring 27 points, RJ Barrett 26, and Scottie Barnes closing the game at the free-throw line on a 22-point, 15-rebound, eight-assist night.
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Tuesday brought the news that matters more than one November win. The Kawhi Leonard injury update the Raptors had promised arrived in the evening, and for the first time since Leonard was scratched in Minnesota on October 25, it pointed forward instead of sideways. The NBA’s official highlights carry the fourth quarter that set the week up:
Kawhi Leonard Injury Update: Treatment Complete, No Return Date Yet
The Raptors announced Tuesday that Leonard “has successfully completed treatment to address left knee swelling,” the team said in its official statement. “He will now begin the return to play process in Toronto, and his progress will be updated in one week.” That places the next medical update on Tuesday, November 10, and the team was careful to offer nothing beyond it: completing treatment is a step in a process, not a clearance to play, and no return date was attached to the announcement.
The timeline behind the statement explains the caution. Leonard played Toronto’s first two games of the season, averaging 19.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.5 steals, before he was a late scratch ahead of the October 25 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves after his left knee swelled. Imaging announced on October 27 revealed no acute injury, but Leonard would undergo treatment and rehabilitation away from the team, and NBA insider Chris Haynes reported at the time that the absence could run three to four weeks. Monday’s game in Los Angeles was the reunion that never happened: Leonard, reacquired from the Clippers in September, was not in the building against his former team, and Tuesday’s win was Toronto’s second in the five games he has missed, against three losses.
What the update changes is the shape of the wait. Leonard is back in Toronto, the treatment phase is closed, and the ramp-up is now a basketball question, how the knee responds to on-court work, rather than a medical one. Reporting around the announcement put his absence at a minimum of three more games, which would make the November 11 visit of the Boston Celtics the earliest plausible return date, and even that depends on a clean week. For a 35-year-old with Leonard’s history, and for a team that signed him to a reported $115 million extension after the trade, a clean week is the whole story. Nothing in Tuesday’s statement promised one.
The Centre Problem Meets Jokic In Denver
How to watch: Toronto Raptors vs Denver Nuggets, Wednesday, November 4, 9 p.m. ET at Ball Arena
TV (Canada): TSN/TSN+
Radio: Sportsnet 590
The road trip does not wait for the ramp-up. Toronto plays the Denver Nuggets at Ball Arena on Wednesday night, and the position Leonard’s absence does not touch is the one under the most strain. Jakob Poeltl, who has missed the last two games, is listed as questionable with left shoulder bursitis. Nate Bittle is out with a foot injury. Collin Murray-Boyles, who started as a small-ball centre in Los Angeles and scored 18 points with seven rebounds, is the projected starter again, against Nikola Jokic.
There are two honest reasons for Toronto optimism, and both were visible on Monday. The first is the glass: the Raptors lead the NBA with 15.3 offensive rebounds per game despite having no straightforward answer at the five, and Denver surrendered 53 rebounds, 21 of them offensive, in its 118-110 home loss to Portland on Monday. The second is how Monday’s comeback actually turned. Against the Clippers, the tide did not move until Brook Lopez fouled out, which underlines both the problem and the plan: Toronto’s small lineups can run a traditional centre off the floor or foul him out of the game, and its pressure at the rim, 62 points in the paint and 48 free-throw attempts in Los Angeles, is built to do exactly that. Jokic, for his part, has opened the season below his usual standards, averaging fewer points, rebounds and assists than last season through six games, with his shooting down with them. Denver is 3-3, has lost two of its first three at home, and now has former Raptor DeMar DeRozan scoring off its bench. None of that makes Ball Arena a soft landing. It makes it a test with a visible route through it.
What The Morning After Changes, And What It Does Not
The standings layer settled overnight as well. The win in Los Angeles ended Toronto’s two-game slide and lifted the Raptors to 4-3, while the Clippers fell to 1-6 with a sixth straight defeat, a start that makes their own long injury list harder to carry by the week. Toronto’s fourth quarters have become a habit worth naming: 43 points in the fourth against the Lakers on Sunday in a loss, 47 against the Clippers a night later in a win, 90 closing-quarter points across two nights in the same city, on tired legs, down two starters.
What the morning after does not change is the calendar. Denver on Wednesday and Milwaukee on Friday close the four-game road trip, Memphis visits Toronto on November 9, and the Leonard update lands on November 10, one day before Boston. If the return to play process runs clean, the Raptors will get their two-time Finals MVP back for the hardest stretch of their early season, with a team that has learned to win fourth quarters without him. If it does not, Tuesday’s statement will read the way these statements usually read in November, as the first page of a longer file. The record tied on Monday is already history. The process that began on Tuesday is the story now.
