TORONTO (AP) \u2014 RJ Barrett scored 26 points, Scottie Barnes had 18 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists for his ninth career triple-double, and the Toronto Raptors clinched their first playoff berth in four seasons by beating the Brooklyn Nets 136-101 on Sunday in the regular-season finale for both teams.<\/p>\n
Atlanta\u2019s loss to Miami and Orlando\u2019s loss at Boston gave Toronto the fifth seed in the East and a first-round matchup with fourth-seeded Cleveland.<\/p>\n
The Raptors and Hawks both finished 46-36 but Toronto swept the season series 4-0.<\/p>\n
Toronto went 3-0 against the Cavaliers this season but the teams haven\u2019t played since Nov. 24.<\/p>\n
Barnes shot 8 for 11 in his third triple-double of the season. He\u2019s the first player in Raptors history to have three triple-doubles in multiple seasons.<\/p>\n
Brandon Ingram scored 25 points, Ja\u2019Kobe Walter and Jakob Poeltl each had 11 and AJ Lawson had 10 points as the Raptors posted their best record since going 48-34 and placing fifth in the East in 2021-22. That season also saw Toronto\u2019s most recent playoff appearance, a six-game defeat to Philadelphia in the first round.<\/p>\n
Tyson Etienne led the Nets with 20 points, E.J. Liddell scored 17 points, Chaney Johnson had 16 points and 13 rebounds and Ben Saraf scored 15 points.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn (20-62) lost three straight to finish their worst season since posting the same record in 2016-17.<\/p>\n
The Nets, who went 26-56 last season, have lost four consecutive season finales.<\/p>\n
The Nets were without 10 players due to injury, a group that included Nic Claxton (sprained finger), Noah Clowney (left ankle), Egor Demin (left foot), Josh Minot (left ankle), Michael Porter Jr. (left hamstring) and Ziaire Williams (left foot).<\/p>\n
Toronto will be on the road at Cleveland next weekend to begin the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO (AP) \u2014 RJ Barrett scored 26 points, Scottie Barnes had 18 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1325,1317,1327,1319,1324,1326,1318,1321,1315,1323,1322,1335,1336,1330,1331,1332,1333,1334,1328,1329,48,1316,1320],"class_list":{"0":"post-2082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto","8":"tag-a-j-lawson","9":"tag-ben-saraf","10":"tag-brandon-ingram","11":"tag-chaney-johnson","12":"tag-e-j-liddell","13":"tag-jakob-poeltl","14":"tag-josh-minot","15":"tag-michael-porter-jr","16":"tag-nets-raptors-score","17":"tag-nicolas-claxton","18":"tag-noah-clowney","19":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","20":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","21":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","22":"tag-product-32547-ap-online-basketball-game-stories","23":"tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","24":"tag-product-40802-ap-new-york-city-sports-only","25":"tag-product-40803-ap-new-york-state-sports-only","26":"tag-r-j-barrett","27":"tag-scottie-barnes","28":"tag-toronto","29":"tag-tyson-etienne","30":"tag-ziaire-williams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}