Raptors continue to claw way into playoff picture with ugly win over Pistons

DETROIT – They all count. Early start, late start. On the road, at home, pretty or ugly, against the NBA’s best or worst, the result of every game is the same: you get a W or an L, and move on to the next.

The Toronto Raptors took that to heart – maybe a little too closely – as they had to work hard to find a way to outlast the very much still developing Detroit Pistons 95-91 in a rare noon ET start Saturday.

The win extended their season-best winning streak to four games, gives them seven wins in their past eight and pulls them within one game of the .500 mark at 30-31 and should make dinner taste a little better as they complete their circle of Lake Erie by heading to Cleveland for a game Sunday night.

The win fell in the "not pretty" category as the Toronto shot just 37.5 per cent from the floor and was 7-of-26 from three and missed 12 free throws, but they won the turnover battle 16-8 and held the Pistons to 40.4 per cent shooting and 6-of-24 from deep while largely keeping them off the free-throw line as Toronto got to the line 34 times to 14 for Detroit, which helped offset the Pistons' 17-10 edge in offensive rebounds.

“We’re just playing pretty solidly at the defensive end, I think,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse of the Raptors recent surge. “With some intensity and some disruptiveness like we want to. It wasn’t a great offensive night; we didn’t shoot it very well, we didn’t finish very well, we didn’t shoot free throws very well, but I liked how we played. I thought we got the ball where it should go, like, 90 per cent of the time … you gotta guard, you gotta keep executing and (so) if you don’t make them, you still have a chance and we snuck one out today.”

The game was tied at the end of the first quarter and at half and while Toronto led by one to start the fourth, its largest lead of the game was eight points midway through the period. The Pistons tied the game with a 6-0 run capped by former Raptor Cory Joseph’s three against his hometown club with 3:44 to play.

The game was in doubt the rest of the way but turned when Pascal Siakam scored a pair of lay-ups sandwiched around a Gary Trent Jr. triple as Siakam found room while cutting off a pair of smart Jakob Poeltl passes from the high post.

“They were pressuring a lot, so we felt like it was an opportunity to play off of him,” said Siakam of the relatively new looks added since Poeltl joined the club at the trade deadline.

The Raptors executed poorly offensively down the stretch in their win over New Orleans Thursday and were bailed out in large part by Poeltl’s offensive rebounding. They wanted to clean that up against Detroit and going forward, and may have found something playing off the veteran big, who finished with nine points, 14 rebounds, two steals and four assists in 26 minutes.

“It’s just understanding we need to do a little bit better in those situations and he can make those reads,” said Siakam. “Not a lot of bigs can do that but he’s definitely one of them and all we need is that look and we understand each other.”

The Raptors were up three with two minutes left after the seven-point flurry and Siakam scored the rest of Toronto’s points at the free throw line as he finished with 29 points, eight rebounds, five assists and three steals in another strong showing by the Raptors All-Star.

Trent Jr. had 19 points and four assists while Scottie Barnes had 12 points, seven rebounds and four assists as the Raptors point guard with Fred VanVleet out again due to personal reasons.

The win over the Pistons (15-46) started a stretch of seven road games in eight starts with the Raptors needing as many positive results as they can get as they try to claw their way back into the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

“We can’t look ahead. We have to take care of every single game and treat it like it was our last,” said Siakam. “We put ourselves in this situation, that happens in life, but we have to stay focused on the task ahead.”

Despite the two teams’ different ambitions – Detroit is very much hoping their  rebuilding project will include projected No. 1 overall pick Victor Wembanyama come June, while the Raptors have their eyes on winning a playoff round or two by season’s end – they’ve now played three very tight, very entertaining games that have come down to the final handful of possessions.

The unusual start time was a topic of pre-game conversation. For a collection of people who are accustomed to having to be their best at about 9 p.m. most days, getting the adrenalin going at the crack of noon wasn’t something that came naturally. It had Pistons head coach and former Toronto Raptors bench boss Dwane Casey getting nostalgic about the noon starts it seemed the Raptors would routinely get to start playoff series in the five years he took them there.

I joked with Nurse that he might be walking around his dressing room with a tray of coffees.

Not needed, it turns out.

“I don’t drink coffee, actually, shout out Red Bull,” said a joking Siakam, who is sponsored by the energy drink maker. He also nodded to the heavy Raptors contingent that always makes it across the border for the Pistons games.

“Shout out to the Raptors fans, bringing that energy to us,” he said.

Still, while both teams came out and played with a reasonable amount of intensity, but the joints were a little creaky, shooting elbows especially. The score was 9-8 Detroit midway through the first quarter and 22-22 at half with the two teams combining to shoot 17-of-49 from the floor and 3-of-17 from the three.

The exception was Siakam, who was wide awake and locked in. He led both teams with 13 first quarter points on 5-of-8 shooting. Meanwhile, the Raptors did a good job throwing Pistons leading scorer Bojan Bogdanovich off his game (11 points was barely half of his season average) by switching O.G. Anunoby, Siakam and Precious Achiuwa on to him, giving him fits. One of the Raptors' defensive highlights came when Siakam ended up on the Pistons vet a mid-court, strung him out laterally, poked the ball loose and hit a sprinting Anunoby for dunk on the break.

The challenge the Raptors had was controlling their own defensive glass. The Pistons were doing plenty of missing, but the Pistons were running at the rim with their seemingly endless collection athletic young bigs – and that’s with promising rookie Jalen Duren sidelined with an ankle injury. Marvin Bagley III, the No.2 pick in the 2018 draft the Pistons are trying as a reclamation project alongside former No. 2 overall pick in the 2020 draft, James Wiseman, had eight offensive rebounds for 13 points in just 13 minutes of floor time.

He finished with 21 points and 18 rebounds, eight on the offensive glass.

“He played a great game,” said Nurse. “We were trying to put a body on him but he was faking one way and slipping around the other side.”

Detroit shot just 35 per cent from the floor and 3-of-15 from deep in the first two quarters. But they had a 13-4 advantage on the offensive glass. Between that and the Raptors shooting just 12-of-20 from the free-throw line, Detroit was able make things difficult for Toronto, which was shooting 36.6 per cent from three and just 2-of-13 from deep, even with Siakam scoring 18 first-half points on 6-of-10 shooting.

VanVleet is considered day-to-day with the Raptors heading to Cleveland for the second half of their road back-to-back on Sunday evening. The beneficiary has been point guard Jeff Dowtin Jr., who is on a two-way contract but who Nurse has tapped to play ahead of both Malachi Flynn and Dalano Banton. He was solid in 19 minutes in Toronto’s win over New Orleans on Thursday and had some good moments in his 10 first-half minutes Saturday, managing to stick with Piston’s speedster Jaden Ivey better than most and getting to the rim for a pair of buckets as well. He played 20 minutes, scored four points but and was even in the plus/minus category.

“We’re pretty confident putting him on their best offensive guard,” said Nurse. “And that’s saying something."

The Raptors failed to gain significant momentum in the third quarter and trailed by four late in the period before Siakam brought Raptors-heavy crowd to their feet when he sent Pistons forward Isaiah Ivers to the floor with a nasty crossover, scored, got fouled and knocked down the free throw.

Next trip down, he blocked Bogdanovich’s layup and pushed the ball ahead to Achiuwa, who finished a tough layup at the other end. Finally, Siakam stole the ball from Pistons guard Killian Hayes to stymie Detroit's last possession of the quarter. The quick 5-0 swing gave Toronto a 71-7- lead to start the fourth.

They came close to squandering it but were able to hang on and leave Detroit with a win, which was harder than it sounds, but looks just as good in the standings.