Hello Toronto Raptors fans, how are you feeling about Brandon Ingram? I bet you were feeling great after the regular season. After all, Ingram shined in the regular season with the Raptors. Not only did he lead the team in scoring, but he was an All-Star who played a career-high 77 games.
Then came the playoffs.
Unfortunately, playoff Ingram is different than regular season Ingram. This brings me back to my original question for Raptors fans. How are you feeling about Ingram?
There sure seems to be some buyer’s remorse, as some fans are already talking about trading their star player.
I wish I could tell our NBA fans to the north that Ingram’s 2025-2026 playoff performance was a fluke. Unfortunately, as a Pelicans fan, I know it was no fluke. During Ingram’s six seasons with the Pelicans they made it to the playoffs twice, falling in the first round both times.
Ingram played great during the Pelican’s 2021-2022 playoff series against the Phoenix Suns. He averaged 27 points per game in the six-game series while shooting over 40% from three-point range.
That is the good. But the rest is bad.
In the 2023-2024 playoffs when the Pelicans were swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder in four games, Ingram averaged just 14.3 points per game while shooting 34% from the field and 25% from three. Ingram was shut down by Lu Dort and the Thunder’s suffocating defense.
In this year’s playoffs when the Raptors lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers in seven games, Ingram again was shut down offensively. In five games, Ingram put up just 12 points per game on 33% shooting.
Ingram once again had trouble dealing with the more physical playoff style defense. On offense, Ingram likes to have the ball in his hands to either make plays for others or find his own shot. Unfortunately, though, in the playoffs teams tend to play a much more physical style of defense that Ingram has a lot of trouble with.
It’s become clear that Ingram can’t be your team’s primary ball handler in the playoffs. Now the Raptors must decide if they want to trade Ingram away like the Pelicans did or find a different offensive strategy with Ingram playing off the ball. This is the position the Pelicans found themselves in when they decided to trade Ingram to the Raptors.
The other harsh reality that the Raptors must come to terms with is that Ingram gets injured quite a bit. He had to sit out games six and seven against the Cavaliers due to a heel injury, and even though he played in almost every regular-season game, injuries finally caught up to him when the Raptors needed him the most.
I don’t mean to beat up on Ingram, who is still a very good player. But the reality is that after another dreadful playoff performance, Ingram and the Raptors need to rethink how they approach their playoff strategy on offense. A reality that Pelicans fans know all too well.
Add us as a preferred source on Google