With All-Star Scottie Barnes out for at least three weeks, the Toronto Raptors will continue to be short-handed against the visiting Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night.
In their first game without Barnes (right orbital fracture) on Wednesday, the Raptors suffered a 138-133 road loss to the Charlotte Hornets.
They will face a Lakers team out to amend a 134-110 setback to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday in the second of five straight games on the road.
Barnes left the 127-125 overtime loss to the Denver Nuggets on Monday late in regulation after an inadvertent elbow to the eye from Nikola Jokic. Barnes nearly had a triple-double before the injury, finishing with 21 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists.
The Raptors’ injury list had become shorter on Monday with the return of RJ Barrett after he missed the first three games with a shoulder sprain.
Barrett scored 20 points on Monday and had 31 on Wednesday while Gradey Dick added a career-best 30.
“It doesn’t really mean anything without this win, that would have been even better,” Dick said.
Coming off his first All-Star campaign, Barnes has averaged 19.3 points, 7.8 rebounds and six assists this season.
“Guys respect the way he plays, the energy that he brings,” Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic said. “We really tried (Wednesday) to play for him, to try to get this win for him as well.”
The Raptors fell behind 30-16 after one quarter and lost for the fourth time in five games, putting a damper on Dick’s career game and leaving the team determined to rebound.
“They feel terrible, nobody wants to lose but we have guys in the locker room who hate it more than winning,” Dick said. “So I feel like when you have guys like that, who are so competitive, things can change.”
The Raptors have been without Immanuel Quickley (right pelvic contusion), who was injured in the season opener and is doubtful for Friday. Bruce Brown (knee), Kelly Olynyk (back) and Ja’Kobe Walter (shoulder) have yet to play, though Walter is listed questionable.
In the loss at Cleveland, LeBron James scored 26 points but had a game-high six turnovers against his original team.
The Lakers have lost two straight after a 3-0 start.
“I just don’t think we matched their intensity with energy and effort,” James said. “It’s never good to take a step backwards, but we did that. And now we’ve got to figure out how we can take two steps forward next time.”
Los Angeles had a season-high 21 turnovers leading to 31 Cleveland points.
“You play a good basketball team, you can’t make that many mistakes.” Los Angeles coach JJ Redick said. “And we got down early and we couldn’t recover.”
Anthony Davis, who had 22 points and 13 rebounds despite jamming his hip in the first quarter, declared the final three games on the trip as “must-wins.”
“This is the first game where we weren’t grasping (the offense),” Davis said. “We were awful offensively because of our spacing.”
In the fourth quarter, the crowd chanted for LeBron’s son, Bronny, to enter the game. When Bronny hit a jumper for his first NBA points and only points of the game, the crowd erupted. He added two assists in 5:16 of playing time.
“It was insane,” said Bronny James, the Lakers’ second-round pick in June. “Much more than I anticipated for sure. … The chants really got me. I was straight-faced, but I felt it and it felt really good, especially coming from here.”
