Toronto won the East Group A of the NBA Cup with a win over the Wizards

After a disappointing 2024-25 season in which Toronto Raptors won just 30 games, they entered the 2025-26 campaign with a strict focus on making the leap as a collective. After all, they have one of the the most expensive payrolls in the league, and they brought in Brandon Ingram back in February to add to their growing core. And now, the Raptors are really doing what they set out to do, as they beat the Washington Wizards 140-110 on Friday night. NBA Cup the action moves them to 11-5 on the season.

That 11-5 record has the Raptors in second place in the Eastern Conference at this moment, which is why they exceeded even the most optimistic expectations about their entry into the new campaign. Just to make things even better for the Raptors, this latest win over the Wizards moved them to 3-0 in the group stage of the NBA Cup.

Having already defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers, their closest competitor in the group (2-1 record), regardless of the result against the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday, they will now enter the knockout stage of the tournament. based on the clinch Group A — a huge win for a supposedly rebuilding team.

This Raptors team is growing before our eyes, and they’ve been winning as a team. Five different players scored in double figures on Friday, and of those five, four scored 23 or more points. They played their fellow Eastern Conference teams, and their next five games will be against teams within the conference — giving them a huge chance to extend their six-game streak even further.

The Raptors punch a ticket to Vegas

The NBA Cup may not be as prestigious a tournament, but it remains important for them to compete given how much money is at stake. The prize money per individual may not matter as much to those signed to Supermax contracts, but it does matter a lot to team personnel and other players who stick around for life.

Considering how well the Raptors have been doing against the East lately, don’t rule them out as a potential conference representative in the NBA Cup Finals.