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TORONTO – The disappointment in RJ Barrett’s face was evident.
The Mississauga, Ont., native blankly stared at the statsheet, taking his time before getting his thoughts out. When he walked out of the press conference, he mumbled while shaking his head in disgust.
Barrett led the Toronto Raptors with 20 points in a 123-115 loss to the lowly Sacramento Kings on Wednesday night. The Kings entered the game tied for the NBA’s worst road record at 6-32, while also having the league’s fourth-worst record.
“We’ve been doing well. We have a solid record, but it’s nights like these where this is a game we’re supposed to win no matter what,” he said when asked about the process of a team that hasn’t been on a playoff run together. “Process or no process, we can’t lose this game. Just straight up what it is.”
Toronto, which entered the contest in sixth place in the Eastern Conference, fell to seventh — a play-in spot — due to a tiebreaker with Philadelphia.
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The Raptors were coming off a road loss to the East-leading Detroit Pistons on Tuesday night and admittedly came out without the necessary energy. And it showed as Toronto was outrebounded 48-32, giving up 19 offensive rebounds.
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“Definitely a tough loss for us,” head coach Darko Rajakovic said. “I think the game was really (about) rebounding. It came down to that they had dominated the glass … we just did not have enough discipline, enough effort to close on those possessions.
“Did a really good job on (DeMar) DeRozan in the first half. But … he can at any point catch fire. He was at two points in the first half, finished the game with 28 … but when you don’t approach the game from the start, with the level of intensity and attention to detail that you need to have, this is the outcome.”
DeRozan and Precious Achiuwa, both former Raptors, were the primary culprits on Sacramento’s end.
DeRozan scored 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting in the fourth quarter, including the dagger three-pointer with 1:05 left amid a 5-0 personal run that pushed the game out of reach.
Achiuwa had 28 points and 19 rebounds, which included an 11-point, 10-rebound showing in the second quarter alone. He entered play with averages of 9.6 points and 6.5 rebounds per game.
“Can’t let him (do) things like that,” Barrett said of Achiuwa’s stat line. “They had a lot of offensive rebounds tonight. Our fight just wasn’t where it needed to be from the beginning of the game.
“Us being in some early foul trouble kind of made us be less aggressive, but we’ve got to understand that we can’t lose the aggressiveness at that point. We’ve got to stay there, just do it without fouling.”
With six games remaining in the regular season, the Raptors sit just two games ahead of eighth-place Charlotte and 1 1/2 games back of fifth-place Atlanta in a tight race for seeding in the East.
“This loss didn’t create urgency, there’s been urgency,” Barrett said. “And I think that’s part of why tonight is frustrating. It’s because we know what it is, we know how close this race is.
“Especially now after tonight, if we don’t come out and fight with everything that we’ve got for these next couple of games, we’ve got to play like our life depends on it.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 2, 2026.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
