Raps beat Wizards in Montreal to open pre-season

MONTREAL – Hometown favourite Chris Boucher produced 13 points and six rebounds arsenic the Toronto Raptors defeated the Washington Wizards 125-98 successful their pre-season opener astatine the Bell Centre connected Sunday.

Boucher — the longest-serving Raptor — went 5-for-9 from the level successful 17 minutes aft the squad conducted grooming campy astatine the Université du Québec à Montréal each week.

RJ Barrett led each scorers with 17 points connected 7-of-10 shooting successful 14 minutes — each successful the archetypal fractional — earlier exiting the crippled with a bruised close enarthrosis aft moving into a surface by Wizards large antheral Jonas Valanciunas.

Gradey Dick, Kelly Olynyk, Jamal Shead and Jahmi’us Ramsey and Jamison Battle added 10 points each for the Raptors.

Jordan Poole led Washington with 16 points and six assists. Swiss-Canadian Wizards guardant Kyshawn George, whose begetter Deon is from Montreal, scored 8 points successful beforehand of a battalion of friends and household successful the stands.

The sellout assemblage of 21,900 rowdy spectators included newlyweds Marie-Philip Poulin and Laura Stacey of the PWHL’s Montreal Victoire, four-time Canadian Olympian Natalie Achonwa and erstwhile Raptors large Vince Carter.

Carter, who volition go the archetypal subordinate successful Raptors franchise past to person his fig retired connected Nov. 2, received the loudest ovation of the night.

Raptors prima Scottie Barnes, who missed the commencement of campy for idiosyncratic reasons, and starting constituent defender Immanuel Quickley (thumb) were ruled retired for the game.

Boucher — who grew up successful the Montréal Nord borough — besides took the Bell Centre level to a hero’s invited erstwhile the Raptors played an accumulation crippled against the Brooklyn Nets successful October 2018.

The Raptors past played a pre-season crippled successful Montreal against the Boston Celtics successful 2022, but Boucher was retired with a hamstring injury.

It was the eighth clip Montreal hosted an NBA pre-season crippled arsenic portion of the NBA Canada Series since 2012.

Boucher and George addressed the assemblage from centre tribunal to extremity things disconnected earlier the Raptors went connected a roll.

Led by Barrett and Dick, the Raptors opened connected a 13-2 tally little than 4 minutes into the game.

Boucher and George checked successful arsenic the archetypal players disconnected their benches six minutes into the archetypal 4th to much ovations.

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Boucher’s dunk with 1:49 near successful the 4th helped the Raptors leap retired to a 34-16 pb aft the archetypal quarter.

In the second, Boucher deed a 3 portion Barrett deed 2 layups and a changeable from beyond the arc arsenic Toronto kept moving up the score, starring 49-22 with 7 minutes remaining successful the 2nd half. The Raptors led 56-38 astatine halftime.

Boucher scored 8 points successful the 3rd quarter, but the Wizards chopped the Raptors pb to 15 with aggregate baskets from Alexandre Sarr and George.

Both teams went heavy down their benches successful the 4th quarter. Toronto’s Battle scored 8 points successful a hurry with 2 threes and a layup arsenic the Raptors cruised to the resounding win.

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The Raptors sojourn the Wizards successful a rematch connected Friday earlier a home-and-home bid with the Boston Celtics connected Oct. 13 and Oct. 15. They’ll wrapper up the pre-season against the Nets successful Brooklyn connected Oct. 18.

Toronto tips disconnected its 30th day play astatine location against the Cleveland Cavaliers connected Oct. 23.

This study by The Canadian Press was archetypal published Oct. 6, 2024.