Game Info

When: Wednesday, October 20 at 7:30 p.m. ET

Where: Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario

How to watch: NBC Sports Washington

Injury Report

Wizards: Bradley Beal (Knee, Game-Time Decision); Cassius Winston (Hamstring, Game-Time Decision); Rui Hachimura (Non-Injury Related, Out); Thomas Bryant (Knee, Out)

Raptors: Chris Boucher (Finger, Game-Time Decision); Yuta Watanabe (Calf, Out); Pascal Siakam (Shoulder, Out)

Pregame Notes

The NBA season has returned! The excitement is settling in and there’s high hopes with this Washington Wizards team. There’s new players rocking the Wizards uniform as well as a new head coach in Wes Unseld Jr. Although there’s high hopes, high expectations may be a stretch as many have already counted the team out early. We know how that goes as other teams will have that perception as well.

One of the things Washington needed to badly work on was defense and Coach Unseld Jr. made it clear that’s something that will be instilled into this team and a heavy focus. Be prepared to look out for some starting lineup rotations as the season goes along. Since Rui Hachimura is out for a couple games, the potential lineup for Wednesday could be Spencer Dinwiddie, Bradley Beal, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kyle Kyzma and Daniel Gafford.

One highlight of this Washington team is Gafford signing a three-year extension which was huge as he showed last season and during the preseason how he was such a big asset to the team since Thomas Bryant was injured. Honestly, Gafford may have taken the starting center role regardless of Bryant’s status come All-Star break. All eyes will definitely be on him this season.

For the Wizards, it’ll just be one game at a time and getting better along the way. They start the season off in Canada against the Toronto Raptors, a team that lost their starting point guard to free agency, Kyle Lowry. That’s not to say the Raptors are not a challenge, but hopefully coaching and lineup rotations will be better.