Brandon Ingram put together an impressive performance in a must-win game against the Miami Heat. He finished the match with 38 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists, and 1 steal. He also only turned the ball over once and didn’t foul at all.
38 points are a season-high for Ingram. He also tied his season-high in assists, but scored more than 24 points alongside the seven assists for the first time this season. It was also only the fourth time this season that Ingram made at least 13 shots in a game and the second time he sank ten or more free throws.
It was one of his most complete games of the season at just the right time. Beating the Heat twice solidified the Raptors’ standing as a playoff team and lowered the risk of seeing them fall into the play-in tournament. It also reiterated how important Ingram is to this team and inspired confidence in his ability to put together some more impressive games like this to close out the regular season and in the playoffs. Darko Rajaković, for one, expects Ingram to be big going forward.
“We need BI to be aggressive,” Rajaković said after the game. “We need him to be forceful. He did a good job not just scoring, he grabbed rebounds, seven assists tonight. He led our team in assists tonight. So, it was a great performance, and now he’s in trouble. Now, we know what he can do, so we’re going to expect more from him.”
The Raptors will need Ingram at his best against the Knicks and in the playoffs
The Raptors, Hawks, Magic, Hornets, and 76ers are all within two games of each other. If all of them won their last two games, the 76ers and Hornets would be tied with a 45-37 record, the Magic would have a 46-36 record, and the Raptors and Hawks would tie with a 47-35 record.
If the Raptors want to finish fifth—and face the Cavs rather than the Knicks in the first round—they would have to finish the regular season with more wins than the Hawks or tied because they secured the head-to-head tiebreaker by sweeping the season series. The “easiest” way to ensure that happens would be winning the last two games of the season. There’s just one problem: the Raptors haven’t looked great against the Knicks recently.
Everyone, but especially Brandon Ingram, needs to be at their best to give the Raptors a chance to beat the Knicks.
The same goes for the playoffs. No matter who their first-round opponent is, the Raptors won’t enter the postseason as a favorite to advance. They may have beaten the Cavs three times this season, but rarely at full strength and never with James Harden in the game, and the playoffs are a different beast than the regular season—especially for a team that hasn’t been there with its current core.