10 things I saw from Raptors-Pistons (Nov. 14)
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3 min readNov 15, 2018
- Disaster: This was the first must-win of the season with Dwane Casey making his first return to Toronto, and it was an utter meltdown. The Raptors gave up a 19-point lead in the second half before losing in the most embarrassing way possible at the final buzzer.
- Outwitted: Raptors got schooled twice with just two seconds left. First, the Raptors got caught on a sideline play where Glenn Robinson popped free and caught a clean lob to finish the game on a layup, but Pascal Siakam showed incredible recovery to block him on the play. Second, with 1.2 seconds left, Nick Nurse made a point to put Jonas Valanciunas into the game to guard Andre Drummond, and Valanciunas gets caught sleeping on a switch and Reggie Bullock squeaks past him to catch the inbound and lay it in with time expiring.
- Mistake: The Raptors could have come away with the win had Nurse resisted the urge to call timeout. Kyle Lowry came away with a rebound and was fouled by Blake Griffin which would have led to two free throws, but that was negated by Nurse’s timeout. That error was then compounded by Kawhi Leonard dribbling the ball off his foot on what would have been the go-ahead shot.
- Meltdown: That sequence completed a total choke job by the Raptors who only got outscored 46–25 over the last 18 minutes of the game. Detroit dialed up their physicality and took away the paint, and the Raptors couldn’t score. Leonard rattled off a series of unsuccessful isolation sequences against Stanley Johnson, who also popped two unlikely threes in the fourth. Toronto finished the game shooting 4-of-20 from deep, and have now made just 17-of-65 from three this week.
- Revenge: Dwane Casey celebrated this win like it was his second championship. He’ll downplay the circumstances in the press, but he was jumping for joy at the final buzzer and exited the arena through the opposite tunnel (he clearly knows the layout) without shaking any hands. Casey, for the record, has been stellar with his end-of-game play calling all season, while his understudy and successor in Nurse failed in his first test, which has to warm Casey’s heart.
- Deserved: The Raptors paid tribute to Dwane Casey with an emotionally charged video that highlighted Casey’s rise from inheriting a 23-win team to winning 59 games and earning Coach of the Year honors. It doesn’t make it any less awkward that he was rudely dismissed, but at least Casey got his deserved ovation from the fans and came away with the win.
- Concern: Danny Green exited the game with back tightness after getting caught on a hard screen. The Raptors are now incredibly thin on the wings as Norman Powell and CJ Miles are also out. To make matters worse, the Raptors’ bench has been underperforming all season as both Delon Wright and Fred VanVleet have seemingly regressed from where they were last season. Toronto also has a four-game road trip coming up spanning just six days, so there’s not a lot of time to recover.
- Debut: Greg Monroe got his first taste of non-garbage time minutes with Serge Ibaka sitting out with knee soreness. Monroe looked physically fit and finished effectively around the rim, and was passable on defense since the match-ups with Jon Leuer and Pachulia weren’t really threats to score. Nevertheless, Ibaka’s defense was sorely missed.
- Tradition: OG Anunoby joined the likes of Jakob Poeltl and James Johnson in the proud Raptors tradition of crowning Andre Drummond. Anunoby caught the Pistons sleeping to start the second quarter and took off from outside of the dotted circle to hammer it down on Drummond, which served as yet another example of Anunoby regaining his full bounce after he underwent ACL surgery in 2017.
- Revenge: Leonard made a point to strip Zaza Pachulia on his very first possession of the game. This is Leonard’s first time playing against Pachulia since the latter slid his foot under Leonard in the Western Conference Finals back in 2017. Leonard missed the remainder of the playoffs and would only appear in another nine games for the Spurs before he ended up in Toronto.
