Every NBA season has its moments; for the 2025-26 Toronto Raptors, their season was filled with incredible ones.
From buzzer-beaters to historic runs, from emotional homecomings to road atmospheres that felt anything but, the Raptors delivered a season full of moments that deserve a second look.
In no particular order, here are eight moments over the course of the season that some may have forgotten:
From doubt to downtown
At this point of the season, Immanuel Quickley was in Toronto’s spotlight, but for all the wrong reasons. For weeks, Quickley could not buy a bucket, and Raptors fans were running out of patience.
Heading into a matchup with the Charlotte Hornets, IQ was ice cold. He had already been benched in the fourth quarter twice in Toronto’s previous four games, and early on against Charlotte, it looked like another disaster was unfolding.
Through three quarters, Quickley was just 1-for-7 from deep, and over his previous 19 quarters of basketball, he had shot a miserable 10-for-39 from three. For a $32.5 million player, the noise around him was getting louder by the game.
But everything changed in the final frame of this match… Suddenly, the villain became the hero.
The Raptors looked dead in the water. Brandon Ingram had exited after jamming his thumb, Scottie Barnes was battling through a sore knee, and Toronto had clanked its way to a brutal 3-for-27 night from beyond the arc. Down 10 in the fourth, the game felt over. However, Quickley refused to let the game slip away.
He sparked the comeback with eight fourth-quarter points and delivered the defining moment of the night with the Raptors down two and 1.6 seconds remaining. Curling around a screen, Quickley drilled a deep buzzer-beating three from the top of the key, capping off a stunning comeback victory.
The win improved the Raptors to 23-15 and moved them within one game of the third-place Boston Celtics in the East at the time.
The night Brandon Ingram officially won over Toronto
This was the moment Brandon Ingram truly arrived in Toronto.
Coming into the season, expectations around the Raptors were low. Most people saw them as a fringe play-in team at best. However, as the wins started piling up, the conversation around Toronto began to shift, and Ingram was at the center of it all.
In a tight 95-95 battle against the Indiana Pacers, the Raptors had an eight-game winning streak on the line and a chance to lock up a top-two spot in the Play-In Tournament. The pressure was high, but the storyline made it even better: Toronto’s new star going head-to-head with its former one, Pascal Siakam.
With the clock winding down in the fourth quarter, Ingram isolated against Siakam, calmly got to his spot, rose, and buried a cold-blooded 14-foot jumper to win the game.
BI finished with 26 points and eight rebounds, leading the Raptors to their ninth straight victory.
A performance for the ages in the Bay
Scottie Barnes delivered plenty of standout moments this season that didn’t get nearly enough attention, but none bigger than his historic triple-double against the Golden State Warriors.
Barnes stuffed the stat sheet with a monster performance, finishing with 23 points, a career- and franchise-high 25 rebounds, and 10 assists. He also forced overtime in dramatic fashion, tipping in a rebound near the final buzzer to tie the game 122-122 at the end of regulation.
From there, the Raptors took over, dominating overtime en route to a 141-127 victory. The performance also etched Barnes’ name into the NBA record books alongside some of the game’s all-time greats.
Barnes became just the 23rd player in NBA history to record at least 23 points, 25 rebounds, and 10 assists in a single game. The exclusive list includes legends such as Wilt Chamberlain (13), Elgin Baylor (2), Maurice Stokes, Bob Pettit, Maurice Lucas, and Nikola Jokic.
A home game in enemy territory
On Jan. 23 at the Moda Center, it genuinely sounded like a Raptors home game by the end of the night.
The “Let’s go Raptors” chants started quietly, but as the Toronto Raptors pulled away in their 110-98 win, they just kept getting louder. By the time the buzzer sounded, you could barely hear the home crowd anymore.
One of the coolest moments came after the final horn. As the team headed toward the locker room, Scottie Barnes stopped in front of the travelling Raptors fans with a huge smile on his face, hyping them up and taking in the moment with them. You could tell how much he appreciated the support.
Then it got even better when some of those fans were invited backstage to celebrate with the team after the game. This is not a moment that’s going to show up on a stat sheet, but it’s one that deserves more love. It was a perfect reminder of how strong the Raptors’ fanbase is, even on the road.
What could be the GROAT’s final standing ovation
“We want Lowry!”
Those were the chants echoing throughout Scotiabank Arena on Jan. 12 when the Toronto Raptors took on the Philadelphia 76ers.
With Toronto down 114-98 with under two minutes remaining, fans couldn’t care less about the score. All they wanted was to see Kyle Lowry check into what may have been his final game in Toronto.
Lowry has given this city so many unforgettable moments over the years, so it felt right for fans to get one more chance to show him how much he means to them. And when he finally checked into the game, the building erupted. The ovation was loud, emotional, and well-deserved for the GROAT (Greatest Raptor of All Time).
Lowry finished the night 0-for-3 from the field, but nobody cared. The moment that evening was clearly bigger than basketball.
Lowry helped deliver the franchise’s first NBA championship in 2019 and left Toronto as the Raptors’ all-time leader in assists, steals, three-pointers, triple-doubles, and win shares.
For years, Lowry gave everything he had to Toronto. That night, the city gave some of that love back to him.
Seven minutes of absolute basketball domination
Talk about a run for the ages.
Back on March 26, the Toronto Raptors put together one of the craziest stretches of basketball the NBA has ever seen. In a game with major seeding implications, Toronto needed a win badly, and they responded in historic fashion.
During the first half, the Raptors went on a ridiculous 31-0 run that lasted more than seven minutes. Everything was clicking to the point that it felt like the game was over before halftime.
The run also made history, becoming the highest-scoring unanswered run in the NBA’s play-by-play era (since 1996-97).
The Raptors ended up taking it 139-87, marking their largest margin of victory of the season.
The time Chris Paul was a Toronto Raptor…for about 60 minutes
At last season’s trade deadline, Raptors fans were expecting Toronto to land a major name. And to be fair, they did…just not the one anyone had in mind.
Toronto acquired Chris Paul from the Los Angeles Clippers in a three-team deal that sent Ochai Agbaji to the Brooklyn Nets and moved the Raptors below the luxury tax line. The only issue with the deal? He was gone almost as quickly as he arrived.
When the deal first broke, reports immediately surfaced that Paul wouldn’t be required to report to Toronto, and that proved to be the case, as he didn’t suit up for the franchise at any point.
Then, just under an hour after the move became official, Paul announced he was stepping away from basketball altogether, abruptly closing the book on what might have been one of the most surprising and shortest tenures in Raptors history.
Get that gahbage outta here!
As mentioned before, Scottie Barnes has had some incredible moments this past season. We talked about one on the offensive end, so it is only fitting that we mention one on the other end of the court.
On Mar. 14 the Toronto Raptors were in a tense game with the Phoenix Suns, and with just 45 seconds left on the clock, Jalen Green, with a chance to make it a one-possession game, went up for a slam, but Barnes had other plans.
In a play that summed up his Defensive Player of the Year push at the time, he never gave up on the possession, recovered in time, and perfectly timed his leap to send Green’s dunk attempt right off the backboard.
What made this play even better is that it did not end there. The rejection turned into instant momentum the other way, with RJ Barrett finishing a dunk on the ensuing possession to help slam the door shut and put the game out of reach.
When people look back on this Raptors season, the final record and playoff positioning will tell only part of the story. Together, these eight moments reflect a season that was unpredictable, entertaining, and full of reasons for Raptors fans to be excited about what comes next for the Toronto Raptors.