Toronto Raptors: Lakers beatdown serves as a brutal reminder that this isn’t a playoff team

The Toronto Raptors came into their game against the Los Angeles Lakers feeling good for the first time in what feels like forever. Not only did they demolish the Golden State Warriors, but they won at the buzzer against the Washington Wizards just a night ago. With no LeBron James or Anthony Davis for the Lakers, this could be a win, right?

Unfortunately, a shorthanded Raptors team that lost OG Anunoby to ejection early in the game showed very little fight, letting the Lakers run wild for most of the game.

The Lakers stomped the Raptors by a 110-101 scoreline that was in no way close to being as tight as those numbers indicate. The Raptors were down by as much as 30 in this contest, as Frank Vogel and the rest of the Lakers went to down on a beat-up Toronto squad.

The last two wins were some of the best moments of this season, and arguably stand out as THE two best moments, but Toronto regressed to the mean. This is a lottery team, and they played like it last night.

The Toronto Raptors fell back down to earth

“But they didn’t have Fred VanVleet, Kyle Lowry, or Anunoby more all or most of the game!” I hear you yell. True, this was a short-handed squad. However, the Lakers, a team that sacrificed most of their depth to accommodate two of the game’s 10 best players, had both of their heavy hitters out.

Montrezl Harrell was also booted out in the Anunoby scuffle, meaning Marcus Morris and what’s left of Marc Gasol tore this team up.

Even if all of those studs were healthy, the cracks in the armor that have doomed this team all season long continue to show up. The bench lacks scorers, even though Malachi Flynn played well, the rebounding is subpar, and the perimeter defender is prone to allowing some gaudy statistics.

Raptors fans could normally take solace in the fact that their stars have been playing well, but even that didn’t show up last night. Pascal Siakam was 3-16 from the field at one point, and Gary Trent Jr., fresh off a career-high in points scored and an awesome buzzer-beater Raptors fans loved, was just 4-15. Last night was a mess from head to tail.

There is still plenty of time to salvage a somewhat positive season out of all the unwatchable dreck that Raptors fans have had to deal with. However, unless the Raptors suddenly get extremely lucky and both Lowry and VanVleet return with a vengeance, Toronto looks destined for a postseason at home.