Brandon Ingram’s first season in Toronto

During the win streak, Ingram averaged 22.8 points per game, just a bit over his regular-season average of 21.5 (good enough for 22nd highest in the league) over the 77 games (second-most appearances of his 10-year career) he played. He also had a big moment in the fourth win of the win streak at home, yet again against the Charlotte Hornets.

Ingram had it out for the 7-foot-1-inch rookie Ryan Kalkbrenner that night as he started with a monstrous poster early in the game, and later on kept Toronto in the lead late with a huge block from behind on the 34th overall pick yet again. The win streak came to an end in late November, and Ingram actually elevated his performance in December, averaging a season high 23.1 points and 6.2 rebounds, the highest output in any month out of the seven-month regular season.

He got just his second nod for the All-Star game as he averaged 21.5 points, 5.6 rebounds, 3.7 assists on 47.7 percent shooting from the field and 38.2 percent shooting from beyond the three-point line. This marked seven straight seasons for Brandon Ingram averaging more than 20 points per game. On the defensive side, he was able to average 0.8 steals and 0.7 blocks, while committing a career low 1.9 fouls per game.

The lows came at the worst time for Brandon Ingram and the Toronto Raptors as BI3 came out of the gate firing on all cylinders during their matchup with the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs. A 13-point first-half performance saw the Raptors trail by seven points in what looked to be a winnable game, as Toronto had a lead in the first half for a good portion of the time, but in the second half, his struggles started after being able to come away with just four points for the rest of the game on just 4 field goal attempts. In the post-game presser, Ingram said that head coach Darko Rajakovic asked him to be more of a screener. Toronto ended up getting blown out in the third quarter and only made a comeback attempt late in the game when the game was already way too far out of reach, as the game ended as a 126-113 loss on paper, but it was much worse than that.

After a passive first half in game one, Ingram’s struggles continued into games two and three. In game two, he was only able to come away with 7 points while shooting an abysmal 20 percent from the field. In game three, he shot a much better 55.6 percent from the field, but on only nine shots and came away with 12 points, but still Toronto came away with their first win of the series at home and showed the Cavaliers that they won’t just roll over.

Game four was the brickfest of the series as Toronto did come away with a 93-89 win to even up the series, but offence was hard to come by, especially for Ingram, as his field goal percentage was poor yet again, shooting just 26.3 percent. Still, this game can be counted as a good performance by Ingram, as he eventually finished with 23 points on a night when a ton of players on both sides were inefficient. He had some huge shots to help Toronto come away with one of their best playoff wins in the series due to a huge comeback late in the fourth quarter. BI3 made a huge buzzer-beating three-pointer to end the first half on a bang for the Raptors, and also came away with a huge three-pointer late in the game in the middle of the comeback.

A poor shooting night, but two of his shots came at huge moments to help even up the series going back to Cleveland.

In game five, that’s where this story turns out from bad to worse, as the former Duke product was picking up some momentum after a big game four, but he was only able to play 11 minutes before injuring his heel. The Raptors ended up losing a close battle, and Ingram’s night had been cut short.

That’s where this year’s story ended for BI3, as he was unable to suit up for games six and seven. Some called him soft and a quitter for not playing in the most crucial games of the series, but the injury was too serious as Ingram couldn’t even shed the walking boot prior to game seven. He ended up getting surgery to address his heel injury that popped up late in the regular season in March.

How can we assess Ingram’s first season as a Raptor? Some will probably say he didn’t have a good year due to his struggles in the playoffs, but BI3 helped Toronto reach its first playoffs since the 2021-22 season as the leading scorer in the regular season. He’s been an injury-prone player, as this was just his fifth season of playing more than 60 games, and he gave Toronto 77 healthy games in the regular season plus four and a quarter in the playoffs.

Ultimately, this season should go down as a success for Ingram and the Raptors, as they were way ahead of schedule. Coming into the year, most had Toronto as a fringe playoff team, and yes, they ended up clinching a playoff spot on the final day of the regular season, but 46 wins plus pushing a much more talented Cleveland team to seven games has to give fans some much-needed hope moving forward.