CLEVELAND – Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett and the rest of the Toronto Raptors were disappointed but proud after getting bounced from the NBA playoffs.
Jarrett Allen had a double-double with 22 points and 19 rebounds to lead the Cleveland Cavaliers past Toronto 114-102 on Sunday in Game 7 of their first-round series. Barnes led the Raptors with 24 points, nine rebounds and six assists as Toronto fell to 0-11 in post-season games in Cleveland.
Barnes said that pushing the Cavaliers — whose US$392.4 million payroll, including luxury tax, was the highest in the league this season — to Game 7 was something of a coming-out party for the young Raptors.
“We don’t really get that many national television games and we’re across the border, so people don’t really see it,” said Barnes at a post-game news conference. “We work hard, we fight. We can’t really do nothing for their opinion, but we just know how we are together.
“We’re going to fight, we’re going to work hard, we’re going to scrap.”
The Cavaliers will travel to Detroit on Tuesday for Game 1 of their second-round series against the Pistons. Detroit eliminated the Orlando Magic with a 116-94 victory in Game 7 of their first-round matchup earlier Sunday.
Barrett, from Mississauga, Ont., had 23 points, six assists and four rebounds. He also added three steals. Second-year guards Jamal Shead and Ja’Kobe Walter, both playing in their first-ever NBA playoff series, had 14 and 13 points respectively.
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Shead and Walter stepped in as all-star forward Brandon Ingram (right-heel inflammation) and point guard Immanuel Quickley (right hamstring stain) were both unavailable to play.
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“Guys just came in and gave it their all,” said Barrett. “We’ve always had a next man up mentality, and I think that we always believed that we could play at this level.
“This loss hurts, but I think it also shows the rest of the league, rest of the world, what it is we’re building here. When you see the Toronto Raptors, you’re going to have a dog fight.”
It was a remarkably even series with the two teams each scoring 718 points through the first 6 1/2 games but a woeful third quarter was Toronto’s undoing.
The game was tied 49-49 at intermission but the Cavaliers reeled off an 11-1 run to start the third for their first lead of the game. Cleveland outscored Toronto 38-19 in the period, taking a 19-point lead into the fourth.
Allen had a double-double in the third alone with 14 points and 10 boards. That helped Cleveland outrebound Toronto 22-8 in the period, with 14 second-chance points. The Raptors had none.
Although Toronto outscored the Cavaliers 34-27 in the fourth it wasn’t enough to erase Cleveland’s sizable lead.
“I thought we gave everything we’ve got today,” said Toronto head coach Darko Rajakovic, who also congratulated the Cavaliers. “We were fighting for every possession. We were fighting for everything on the floor. We made it really hard for them. That was not an easy game for them to win.
“We were close. We had our opportunities, the chances, and there is going to be a lot of stuff to reflect on and to improve on going forward.”
Shead and Walter weren’t the only players in the Raptors’ youth movement that impressed in the series.
Rookie centre Collin Murray-Boyles finished Sunday’s loss with eight points, four rebounds, three assists, two steals and a block. He averaged 14.4 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.1 blocks per game in his first-ever playoff series.
“I want to say none of this really surprised me, but I’m just proud that people got to see that and just how hard (Shead, Walter and Murray-Boyles) work,” said Barnes, who is only 24 years old. “The time that they put in, all that hard work, everybody seen it, so proud of these guys.
“They fought to the end. This is a great lesson for all of us.”
Most pre-season predictions by media outlets had Toronto winning fewer than 40 games and vying for a play-in spot. Instead, the Raptors earned a 46-36 regular-season record and the Eastern Conference’s fifth seed.
Many prognosticators also predicted Toronto would be eliminated by the highly touted Cavaliers in six or fewer games. Instead, the Raptors pushed Cleveland’s high-priced roster to the brink.
Rajakovic called Toronto’s season “an absolute success.”
“I’m really, really proud of everything that we were able to accomplish this year,” said Rajakovic. “From developing our young guys, from our culture making the next step, from all the things that we were controlling, all the work that we put in, all the connectivity that we had, and all of that resulted with the number of wins that we had.
“Making it to the first round of the playoffs, playing Game 7 over here on the road, I think this was exactly what this team needed, and I think this is going to set us up for a lot of success in the future.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 3, 2026.
© 2026 The Canadian Press