Edwards Drops 26 as Wolves Cruise Past Raptors 117-94

Minnesota handled Toronto from the opening tip, winning 117-94 behind 26 points from Anthony Edwards and a suffocating team effort that never let the Raptors get comfortable. Kawhi Leonard was listed as a DNP — coach's decision, leaving Toronto short-handed against one of the West's more complete rosters.

The game's tone was set inside the first two minutes. Rudy Gobert opened the scoring with a tip shot, LaMelo Ball answered Toronto's early 3-2 lead with a 25-foot step-back three at the 9:43 mark of the first — the moment the win probability swung from 75% to 78% in Minnesota's favor — and the Wolves never really looked back. Edwards added a running layup and then a driving dunk, Jonathan Kuminga knocked in a 23-footer off an Ayo Dosunmu feed, and by the time Terrence Shannon Jr. converted an and-one layup in the final seconds of the first quarter, Minnesota led 32-21. Toronto's RJ Barrett was doing everything he could to keep it close — he had five first-quarter baskets through a mix of layups, a reverse, and a mid-range — but the Raptors were playing catch-up the entire period.

The second quarter buried them. Minnesota pushed the lead to 38-21 before Toronto could respond, with Jaden McDaniels hitting a step-back three off a Ball assist and Shannon Jr. drilling another 25-footer to open the frame. Immanuel Quickley hit a three to trim it briefly, but Gobert finished an alley-oop dunk off Dosunmu to push it back to 40-24, and that was essentially the ballgame. By the time RJ Barrett made a driving layup to close the first-half scoring sequence at 47-34, the margin felt even larger than the numbers suggested. Minnesota's ball movement — Ball finishing with 15 points and 8 assists, Shannon Jr. contributing 15 points and 3 assists off a versatile performance — looks like the kind of depth that makes this team genuinely difficult to game-plan against.

For Toronto, the individual performances were respectable given the circumstances. Ja'Kobe Walter posted 22 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals, and a block. Barrett finished with 20 points and 3 steals. Quickley added 19. But the Raptors scored just 94 points as a team, and with Leonard out by coach's decision, their margin for error was thin against a Minnesota group that appears to have real depth beyond Edwards. The story of the night was Minnesota's collective efficiency — multiple contributors, ball movement that created open looks, and a lead that was never seriously threatened after the first few possessions. Final: MIN 117, TOR 94.