It wasn’t a particularly sharp night for the Toronto Raptors.

Playing down to the competition, however, has been a proclivity of the team for most of the season thus far. Most recently, it happened it Detroit, when the Raptors simply came out flat as week-old ginger ale against the Pistons.

On Friday night, it happened again. The Raptors came out looking sleepy, going through the motions defensively and looking stagnant on the other end, coughing up unnecessary isolation shots and out-of-rhythm triples. It was an easy path to the Washington Wizards building a swift early lead.

Fortunately for Toronto, its star rookie found his stride for a career night to key the Raptors' 109-105 win over the Wizards.

Scottie Barnes simply couldn’t be stopped against Washington, particularly in the second quarter, in which he dropped 10 of his new career-best 27 points (his previous high had been against the Boston Celtics in his second NBA game).

Again and again, he dove into the dunker spot, established deep post position, and then called for the ball. Once he had it, it was just a matter of turning around for a soft hook shot. On more than one occasion, he powered directly through his defender to forcefully finish an and-one.

“I thought he was aggressive, he was physical tonight,” Raptors guard Fred VanVleet told reporters post-game. “He was assertive from the jump. I know he had a couple of miscues early, I think coach took him out, got him right back in. He was pretty locked in tonight and obviously he’s got a high, high ceiling. He’s a very talented young player.”

“Any time he’s got it going like that, you just try to get him the ball in his spots. He was getting good seals against guys he had a good matchup against and he was jump-hooking them to death tonight.”

Only twice did Barnes hit shots beyond nine feet of the rim—including one that narrowly beat the shot clock buzzer, saving a near-doomed possession.

It was a spectacular return to form for the Raptors' 20-year-old phenom, who has not only hit a bit of the dreaded rookie wall (averaging 12.1 points on 46.5 true shooting over his last 10 games) as of late, but who has also been dealing with nagging injuries that have sometimes kept him from the lineup entirely.

“[I was] just attacking the rim,” Barnes said, “getting to spots on the floor and trying to get easy baskets running down the floor. It was really just finding those easy spots where I could just get to a finish at the rim.”

Of course, it bears mentioning that the return of Gary Trent Jr., who had been out the previous six games with an injury of his own, is partially responsible for Barnes’ breakout performance. The spacing he provides just being on the floor opens up so much room for Barnes (and others) to operate, whether that being working his way into the midrange or just posting up.

It was a treat to see the Raptors with a nearly full roster available (Yuta Watanabe played as well; Khem Birch remains out with a broken nose) flash sequences of what the team can do when the right amount of spacing and scoring threats are playing alongside high-level playmakers.

For Barnes, it resulted in a career night, certainly one of many still to come.