Boston Celtics at Toronto Raptors
Wednesday, November 11, 2026
7:00 PM ET, Scotiabank Arena
The Celtics are 7.5-point favorites with a total of 216.5 at most books, and my play is Celtics -7.5.
Back-to-back road games are supposed to be where good teams get caught. That’s the whole case for Toronto tonight, and it’s a thin one when you look at who will actually be wearing a Raptors jersey.
Toronto is playing without its engine. Scottie Barnes has been ruled out for a third straight game with a left groin strain, per Sportsnet and the league’s injury report. That’s 23.5 points, 7.6 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 2.3 steals a night gone. Kawhi Leonard, the big offseason addition, has played in just two games and will miss at least another week with left knee swelling, TSN reported. Immanuel Quickley (17.4 points, 5.8 assists) has missed two straight with right hamstring tightness and is questionable, as are Collin Murray-Boyles and Trayce Jackson-Davis with illness. Ja’Kobe Walter has been handling extra playmaking with Barnes out, according to RotoWire. That is a lot to ask of a second-year wing against one of the stingiest defenses in the league.
Without Barnes and Quickley, Toronto is 1-1: a 121-107 win at a Milwaukee team that is now 1-10, then a 118-102 home loss to Memphis on Monday. The Raptors are hitting just 32% from three on the season. You don’t hang with Boston by trading twos.
Boston is rolling, and the back-to-back looks softer than it sounds. The Celtics (9-2) have won four straight by 7, 39, 20 and 22 points. Last night in Philadelphia, they led by nine after three quarters and then opened the fourth on a 14-0 run behind Payton Pritchard’s back-to-back threes and Paul George, who poured in 36 points on 14-of-22 shooting, per the team’s recap. The lead hit 29 and Boston emptied its bench, so George played 30 minutes and the starters got the late fourth quarter off. That isn’t the kind of tired that sinks a team the next night.
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The efficiency gap is wide. Basketball Reference has Boston scoring 119.6 points per 100 possessions and allowing 108.4, a net rating of +11.2 that ranks among the league’s best. Toronto is +3.3, and most of that came with Barnes on the floor. Boston also lets the three-ball do the work: almost half its shots come from deep, and it hits 38% of them. Jayson Tatum is averaging 27.1 points and 7.8 assists, so even with George hot, the Celtics have more than one way to get a good shot every time down.
The case against me. Boston’s schedule has been soft. Basketball Reference grades its strength of schedule as the weakest in the league so far, so the shiny net rating needs an asterisk. Toronto forces turnovers (11.1 steals per game), which can make a tired team look sloppy. If Quickley plays and the Raptors stay close into the fourth, the hook on 7.5 could hurt. The line has already moved from Celtics -6.5 on the AP preview to -7.5, so the best of the number is gone.
Still, this is a Toronto roster missing its top two players against a Boston team that keeps turning third quarters into blowouts. I’ll lay it.
Projected score: Celtics 116, Raptors 104
The Pick: Celtics -7.5
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