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Poeltl remains massive in Raptors winning streak

Originally posted on Raptors Republic | By Samson Folk | Last updated Nov 19, 2025 9:40 PM ET

The Raptors are succeeding in unique ways. In ways that weren’t necessarily predicted coming into this season. Everyone has an idea of how basketball should be played, what players lend themselves to what style, you get it.

A lot has been made of Jakob Poeltl’s lack of a jumper and how that affects the Raptors #1 player, Scottie Barnes, or even the offense at large. This commentary started to reach a bit of a fever pitch when Poeltl was hampered by his bothersome back to start the season – and especially with Sandro Mamukelashvili playing great minutes, and winning them, off the bench.

The truth exists squarely in the middle of all of this. Yes, Mamu has been a great spacing big and the minutes alongside Barnes have been fun. A spacing big can change how defenses and offenses align themselves, of course, and they can help open up driving lanes. They are not, however, guaranteed to give automatic paint touches to your on-ball players, nor are they guaranteed to lead to better offense.

Poeltl does hamper the Raptors spacing in some ways, but he elevates it in others. He might even elevate it in more important ways than he hampers it. His screening prowess is obviously very important. He opens up gobs of space for the guards on the roster. He came into tonight’s game leading the NBA in screen assists per game (4.9). The underrated part of his game, I think, is that he is the high point in the soft underbelly of defenses. A big, wide catch radius. A soft touch to make that area dangerous. The Raptors don’t have many players who can deliver layups to their teammates in the halfcourt, but they have a lot of players who benefit from a roaming, competent big man in Poeltl.

You don’t even have to break the free throw line as a driver — sometimes not even the 3-point line — before delivering Poeltl the ball middle, and watching him finesse his way to a bucket. Much is made of Brandon Ingram’s heroic mid-range scoring, and that certainly comes at a higher volume, but Poeltl’s navigation of the middle of the floor is a significantly underrated aspect of his game, too. It’s something the Raptors have been leaning on a lot during this big winning stretch. He’s averaging 14.5 ppg and doing it on 79% shooting. The Raptors have been slumping from downtown these last handful of games, and Poeltl’s hyper-efficiency keeps the chains moving.

Gradey brings 2 to the ball, Scottie rolls, Jakob slides to front rim, easy money https://t.co/P8VZlHUCDW pic.twitter.com/IcIaaEIG2r
— Samson Folk (the coach) (@samfolkk) November 20, 2025

Poeltl’s 10 points early in the win against the 76ers — he was the first Raptor to hit double-digits — were a great reminder that he’s at his best as a finisher. He’s always been passable as an, erm, passer, but even when he was passing a lot in past seasons, his turnovers climbed about as fast as the assists did. He’s perfectly fine helping to facilitate offense, but he’s at his best finishing it. The Raptors, who added more on-ball creators this year, have been slowly learning to lean on Poeltl more often as a middle of the floor release valve when teams send help. It’s not the big, dramatic rotations that open up huge threes or layups, but the small overcorrections in the middle that Poeltl is punishing.

At halftime, on TSN’s halftime show, Sam Mitchell said he thought Jakob Poeltl was a top-5 center in the NBA. I don’t agree! However, I’m glad the conversation has really swung on him.

Of course, there’s reasons to have Poeltl on the floor outside of his finishing. A great indicator of his health is his mobility and he’s been far better setting the edge as a screener defender lately than he was at the start of the season. His feet have been better to keep up, he’s been bent a little lower to get his hands in to dissuade pocket passes, and he has a massive correlation with the Raptors improved rebounding on both sides of the floor. If you don’t close out possessions, you don’t have the #2 ranked defense over the last 9 games.

A lot of the Raptors failures in the front end of the fourth quarter actually stemmed from their inability to get Poeltl the ball on offense. Whether it was post entries, checkdowns or laydowns, what would’ve likely been baskets became turnovers. They stopped the bleeding with a Poeltl layup after Barnes found him sliding to the bucket, and Poeltl stonewalled a drive on the very next play.

The Raptors looked for offense late via the pinch post (basically a post up isolation on an empty-side of the floor, designed to create long doubles or room to score in isolation) and they found some points there, but the definitive bucket was Quickley’s as he came off of a Poeltl screen and canned a pull up triple. Toronto force fed their big wings (Barnes, Ingram) and the 76ers responded with more attention there, then they asked Poeltl to clear out space for their best shooter. Great way to close it out.

Poeltl finished with 19 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 stocks. He was essential in this one, as he has been in this fantastic stretch for the Raptors.

As of my writing this, the Raptors are the 2nd seed in the Eastern Conference at 10-5. A Cleveland win could put them back to 3.

This is their best start in a long time, and I’m glad that early season slump and health issues for every player are starting to get sorted out. The Raptors need their big man, and he’s been stepping up lately.

This article first appeared on Raptors Republic and was syndicated with permission.

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