Why Raptors can’t afford to be without Immanuel Quickley in playoffs

Starting point guard does a lot for the team on both ends of the floor.

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Published Apr 15, 2026  •  4 minute read

Raptors' Immanuel Quickley dribbles the ball against the Boston Celtics during the first half at the TD Garden on Jan. 9, 2026 in Boston. Photo by Brian Fluharty /GETTY IMAGES

The Toronto Raptors still don’t know if starting point guard Immanuel Quickley will be available when the playoffs start Saturday in Cleveland.

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Things are at least trending in the right direction, though.

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“He’s doing well. He participated in individual workouts,” Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic said in the first update Sunday night, after Quickley had left the season finale against Brooklyn early.

“He did not take part in the team practice. He’s going to be day to day at this point,” Rajakovic added.

The team had said that following a Sunday MRI that revealed a hamstring strain. Earlier, Quickley had been battling through plantar fasciitis, a foot ailment that had him in and out of the lineup lately.

Toronto needs Quickley to play to have a chance against the Cavaliers. While his backup Jamal Shead fared better than most against superstar guard Donovan Mitchell, Quickley has been called Toronto’s best on-ball defender this season by Rajakovic and is definitely the team’s premier pull-up jump shooter and one of its top overall shooting threats. He can also run the team, is good on the fast break, where Toronto excels and is a strong screener who moves well off the ball.

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The hope is that five days off will be enough to get Quickley in the lineup.

FULL OF CONFIDENCE

Pundits and most media members aren’t giving the Raptors much of a chance against the Cavaliers, even though Cleveland finished only one spot and six wins ahead in the standings. The Raptors aren’t paying that any mind, at least publicly.

“We never cared. We never cared at all, honestly. We just know who we are,” said RJ Barrett, who is playing in his third career fourth-versus-fifth-seed series, having split his first two. “We come in, we fight together every day, and whatever anybody else has to say, we really don’t care.”

Scottie Barnes was even more blunt: “That s— don’t matter,” Barnes said of being labelled underdogs heading in.

The Raptors could be motivated by perceived slights and it also might help them that all of the pressure seems to be on Cleveland. While Mitchell is one of a small handful of players with three 50-point playoff games under his belt and is a perennial MVP candidate, he’s only 5-7 in playoff series, including 0-4 in the second round with only one of those series being close. The Cavs were the top seed in the Eastern Conference a year ago but fell in Round 2 to No. 4 Indiana. They were outclassed two years ago by Boston and  they lost to Barrett, Quickley and the Knicks as favourites the year before that. Adding Harden, an all-time playoff underachiever (15-15 series record) was a bold move geared at finally getting them over the hump.

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We’ll see how that goes.

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LET’S GET PHYSICAL

It will be interesting to see how physical the referees allow both teams to play. Rajakovic said Toronto has prided itself on how hard and physical it play, a formula that saw the team finish fifth overall defensively. Only five teams commit more fouls per game (26 commit more than Cleveland) and if they are allowed to continue playing that brand of basketball it will bode well for them.

Is that possible against Mitchell and Harden, two of the best ever at earning trips to the free throw line? The duo combined to draw nearly 10 fouls per game, were amongst the leaders in free throw attempts and even Jarrett Allen draws fouls at a high rate too.

“We’re in the playoffs. It’s a man’s game. It’s gonna be a physical game on both ends of the floor,” Rajakovic said when asked by the Toronto Sun if they could stick to their defensive principles against the Mitchell/Harden combination.

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“Like anything else, we’ll have to adjust to the certain things that are happening on the court. Is that referees? Is that tendencies of those players? It’s not just Game 1. It’s one game at a time. It’s us getting better at all of those details,” the coach said.

“I’m confident in our habits. I’m confident in the style of play we’re doing,” he added. “I never think in terms of let’s do this in the regular season and let’s change for the playoffs. Since Day 1 of the regular season, we’re trying to install habits that I believe can help us in the playoffs. Everything we’re doing is with a vision of winning a championship. The habits we’re creating, the culture we’re creating, everything is building towards that. I don’t think we have to be any different than the regular season. We just have to be consistent.”

Harden won a game at Toronto this season while still with the Los Angeles Clippers this year despite shooting 37%. The year before he shot 35% and still scored 25. In 2024 it was 29% shooting but still 24 points and a win. Even when he’s off, Harden puts points on the board. He’s ninth all-time in points per game against Toronto and 13th in assists per game.

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Meanwhile, Mitchell shot his lowest field goal percentage against any opponent this season against Toronto. That doesn’t mean he’ll stay quiet.

“He’s a tough matchup. He’s an outstanding player,” Rajakovic said of Mitchell. “He’s a playmaker. He’s a scorer. He can shoot off the dribble. He can get to the free-throw line a lot. He has a complete game. The main thing for Donovan Mitchell is understanding his tendencies and trying to limit his tendencies as much as we can.”

We haven’t even talked about Cleveland boasting a good interior scorer in Allen or an improved offensive talent in Evan Mobley, who was the NBA’s defensive player of the year last season.

There’s probably a reason Cleveland is heavily favoured, even if the Raptors aren’t buying it.

On X: @WolstatSun

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