TORONTO – Immanuel Quickley will miss his third game of the Toronto Raptors’ first-round playoff series with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Raptors starting point guard missed Game 3 on Thursday as he continued to recover from a strained right hamstring.
“Like with any of those types of injuries, there are certain benchmarks that he needs to hit to be available to come back and play,” said Toronto head coach Darko Rajakovic. “So far, he did not hit those benchmarks so for now he’s staying out.”
Cleveland leads the best-of-seven series 2-0.
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Quickley averaged 16.4 points and a team-best 5.9 assists over 70 games this past season.
Second-year guard Jamal Shead will likely start in Quickley’s place for a third time.
Shead averaged 10 points, three assists and a steal over the first two games of the series.
Rajakovic left the door open to making other changes to Toronto’s starting lineup. That could include having rookie Collin Murray-Boyles start over Jakob Poeltl at centre and have Ja’Kobe Walter start at point guard instead of Shead.
“That’s a very broad question, and I’m going to give you a very broad answer: We’ve got a lot of time to decide on that,” said Rajakovic less than two hours before opening tipoff.
Poeltl is averaging three points, five rebounds, 1.5 assists, one block, and 0.5 steals per game in these playoffs. He did not play in the second half of Toronto’s 115-105 loss in Cleveland on Tuesday.
Murray-Boyles has averaged 15.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 0.5 blocks and 0.5 steals in his first two NBA playoff games. He played nearly 26 minutes in Poeltl’s place on Tuesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 23, 2026.
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