TORONTO — Immanuel Quickley scored 22 points and tied his season high with 11 assists, RJ Barrett had 23 points and the Toronto Raptors held on to beat Charlotte 111-106 on Sunday night for their seventh straight home victory against the Hornets.
Gary Trent Jr. added 17 points and Ochai Agbaji 13 points and a career-high nine rebounds as the Raptors overcame the absence of injured All-Star Scottie Barnes and the loss of center Jakob Poeltl to injury. injury to win for the first time in three games.
Barnes broke his left middle finger against Golden State on Friday and is out indefinitely.
“Any time someone who plays 40 minutes a night is not in the game, I think everything changes,” Quickley said. “But you try to keep the same things as much as you can.
“Everyone stepped up, contributed and played with a lot of effort. That’s what we’re going to need.”
Gradey Dick and Jordan Nwora each scored 11 points for Toronto, which outscored Charlotte 26-15 on fast break points.
“The transition defense was terrible,” Hornets coach Steve Clifford said with a rueful laugh. “When you give up that many open 3s and layups in transition, you’re just not going to win.”
Toronto led the NBA in fast break scoring, leaving Clifford particularly frustrated with his team’s transition performance.
“They are first in the league in counterattack points, so that was a major priority,” Clifford said. “This is what we talked about this morning in the walkthrough. It was also on the board before the match. We just didn’t do it.
Brandon Miller led Charlotte with 26 points and a career-high 10 rebounds. Miles Bridges added 20 points, but the Hornets lost their fourth straight game.
Bridges missed Charlotte’s previous visit to Canada last December due to his past legal issues, but was allowed to cross the border this time.
Grant Williams had 18 points and 13 rebounds, Davis Bertans scored 14 points and Vasa Micic added 12 for Charlotte.
Williams said the Hornets let themselves down by not working hard enough on defense.
“It was just an effort to come back,” Williams said. “It’s not like we’re offensive by rebounding and crashing and putting pressure on the rim. We made simple mistakes in not identifying our man in transition.
Williams capped a personal 8-0 run to cut the lead to two at 102-100 with 1:25 left in the fourth. Bertans followed with a 3-pointer to put the Hornets in front.
Quickley made six straight shots from the line to give Toronto a 108-103 lead with 19.8 seconds left. Charlotte cut it to two again, but Trent made one of two from the line before picking off Micic near midcourt and sealing the win with a layup.
“The last play is the last play,” Clifford said. “We lost because we didn’t step back on defense.”
Agbaji made his first start for Toronto, taking the place of the injured Barnes, the 2022 NBA Rookie of the Year. Before Sunday’s game, Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic said Barnes was still consulting with specialists to decide on options. treatment options, adding that surgery was a possibility.
“Scottie plays a big role in what we do,” Quickley said. “It takes a group effort to make up for what he’s doing.”
Toronto’s injuries worsened when Poeltl went out in the final minute of the first half with a dislocated left pinky finger. Kelly Olynyk started the second half in place of Poeltl.
Rajakovic said Poeltl did not have a fracture, but the Austrian big man was still being assessed. Toronto’s next game is Tuesday against New Orleans.
Bridges scored 16 points in the third, but Trent had 11 for the Raptors. Toronto led 82-75 through three quarters, then opened the fourth with an 8-0 run to make it a 15-point game.
Bridges is currently serving three years of probation after pleading no contest in exchange for no jail time in a domestic violence case involving the mother of his two children in June 2022, who accused Bridges of assaulting her in front of them.
Bridges was suspended by the NBA for the first 10 games of the season after sitting out all of last season.
Charlotte’s Cody Martin was unavailable due to a sprained left ankle, while Seth Curry was sidelined with a sprained right ankle.
Toronto’s Bruce Brown sat out with right knee soreness.
FOLLOWING
Hornets: Host the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night.
Raptors: Host the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night.
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