Another solid effort as Raptors roll over Pistons | Toronto Sun
No one is saying the Raptors are a finished product, but they are a team that has a solid chance every night they walk into an arena regardless of the competition and when have we ever been able to say that about this team?
Once they got that poor start out of their system, the Raptors established themselves as the alpha dogs on the court and then with a few minor hiccups rolled to win No. 51.
The Pistons got it going on a few occasions but each time they did the Raptors responded.
Midway through the third and the Raptors looking like they might start pulling away, the Pistons quickly cut an 11-point lead to four.
But rather than panic and let the momentum continue to slide the other way, the Raps came down and calmly got Lowry an open look which he converted. Then after a stop at the other end, let DeMar DeRozan go to work for one of his own and the lead was back up to eight and the edge they had established was restored.
Takeaways: Raptors bring ‘Bad Boys’ defence to Detroit | Sportsnet.ca
This game was referendum on the move GM Masai Ujiri made in the off-season and the one he may or may not make at the trade deadline. Cory Joseph has been a revelation, and his 15 points on 7-of-9 shooting combined with his stifling defence gave him a plus-24 in 24 minutes against Detroit. Many thought Joseph was overpaid and overrated strictly based off his Canadian passport, but he’s turned out to be Ujiri’s best off-season acquisition by far. The last player left from Ujiri’s last trade deadline deal with Sacramento in 2014 is Patrick Patterson. He’s rumoured to be a possible Raptor in play as Toronto looks to upgrade the four spot. Patterson was plus-23 on just 3-of-4 shooting from the floor. Not many players can affect the game without taking shots but Patterson has become an elite screener, above average passer and much improved defender. Playing against Marcus Morris, Patterson made a statement that he didn’t want to be traded for Marcus’s brother Markieff. Both players have been maligned at times but their intangibles can’t be overlooked or understated.
Raptors put pedal down to pull away from Pistons | Toronto Star
It is to Toronto’s credit that they did not let the mistakes of about a week ago carry over to Monday. They had allowed the same Pistons to create a tight game out of what should have been a laugher in Toronto last Sunday and that same scenario looked like it was unfolding again.
But this Raptors team, though it is young chronologically, is getting wise to the ways of the game in all the right circumstances.
“We’re growing a lot and we have to credit that to the coaching staff for really staying disciplined with us and us understanding no matter how many games we win in a row, (or) what record we stand at in the conference, we have to play with that sense of urgency every single night,” DeMar DeRozan said.
Lowry began the fourth with an old-fashioned three-point play, and made a catch-and-shoot three-pointer seconds after Patterson had made a three to spark an 11-2 run that re-established control for Toronto.
Raptors won’t rest on second-place ‘cushion’ | Toronto Sun
“I don’t think any team in the East can be comfortable,” Casey said. “If they are then they are fooling themselves. I’m not going to let our guys or whoever wants to listen fool themselves and think there is a cushion. There is not a cushion. One bad week and you are sleeping in the outhouse. All this stuff that there is a cushion between two and three is bullcrap.”
Entering Monday’s play, that cushion (if that is what you happen to be calling it) between the Raptors and third place was four and a half games, with Boston occupying that spot and charging hard.
The Celtics have won nine of their past 10. Just before that run began, Toronto squeaked by them in a game at the ACC by a 115-109 score.
Casey only cares that his team not get comfortable like they did a year ago. There was a lesson to be learned there, but as Casey will tell you, he learned those lessons long ago.
“Life lessons taught me way before last year that you can’t get comfortable,” he said. “That’s why one thing we have to continue to do is have good hard practices. Not long but good, hard, brisk practices. Last year we got so worried about saving our legs and saving our bodies we didn’t continue to get better. It’s a fine line. Six one way, half a dozen of the other. But for us being a young team, not a veteran team, continuing to work and put the work in and go hard is (the route).”
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Game Rap: Raptors 103, Pistons 89 | Toronto Raptors
IT WAS OVER WHEN
DeMar DeRozan completed a three-point play to push Toronto’s lead to 20 points with 4:01 remaining. Although the Raptors trailed early, they never relinquished their lead after pulling ahead of the Pistons in the second quarter, coasting to a 103-89 victory behind a huge effort from their bench. The win moves Toronto to 35-16 on the season.
Lowry and Raptors bench steamroll the Pistons, 103-89 | Raptors HQ
Offsetting that success was yet another slow start for the Raptors. Not one to mess with a good thing, Casey has been living through these abysmal openings so that his successful personnel can make it in the first. Norman Powell, bless his defensive effort, has one point as an NBA starter. He got it tonight on a free throw. There’s an argument to be made that you should play your best players from the tap, but it’s hard to go against a team this hot. The Pistons got off to a 19-11 start as DeRozan and Lowry started 1-for-9.
Detroit struggled for a long stretch after that, but found their form in the third quarter when they realized they had Andre Drummond on their team. With just four shots in the first half, Drummond was left on an island to find his own points. In the second half, they finally started feeding him the ball, and he got to work toward his final line of 12 points and 13 rebounds. Three of those points came on this impossible heave as the third expired.
Toronto Raptors dominate Pistons for 35th win | Raptors Cage
As usual, the Raptors had a strong defensive game holding the Pistons to only 89 points, with a lot of that coming in garbage time. The defense also held Reggie Jackson, and Drummond to a combined 25 points. Great effort on the defensive end.
Every little opening, the Raptors exploited.
“For sure. Every time,” Morris said. “Like, every time. A couple of times I went under screens. That’s what a good team does, though, when you mess up. When you make mistakes, they make you pay for it.”
The loss obscured a superb game from Morris, who scored 14 points despite being limited to seven shots as the Raptors doubled him when he got post touches. Morris didn’t force anything, though, passing out of double teams to lead the Pistons with six assists. DeRozan finished with 17, but Morris was responsible for very few of those points.
“I thought Marcus played really, really well,” Van Gundy said. “The problem we had was we couldn’t get him a ton of shots. They did two things. They really loaded up on all of Reggie’s pick and rolls, forced him into a lot of turnovers, where I thought maybe he was forcing the issue a little much. And they came and doubled all of Marcus’ post-ups. Game plan was good and their execution of it was good. They really took those two guys and made it difficult. Marcus was very efficient; we just couldn’t get him a ton of shots.”
Defenseless Pistons stand little chance in loss to Raptors | Piston Powered
This may have been Morris’ best all-around game in weeks, and for good reason. He did a little bit of everything with 14 points (on 5-of-7 shooting) to go with six assists, five rebounds and three steals. He even put the clamps on DeMar DeRozan, who shot just 5-of-14. It’s a night like this where I wonder why Stan Van Gundy doesn’t decide to run his offense entirely through Morris for longer spurts. The Jackson-Drummond thing wasn’t working, go to the guy who was by far the best.
Mistakes doom Pistons against red-hot Toronto Raptors: ‘They made us pay’ | MLive.com
“It wasn’t because a lack of effort. I faulted our guys a lot of times for a lack of defensive effort, I thought we came witwh a good disposition, we fought extremely hard, and every mistake we made they scored.”
Jackson contributed a team-high six turnovers, Morris three, and the final nail in the coffin came with 4:53 remaining at the Pistons down 12. Morris lost the ball, resulting in a Patrick Patterson 3-pointer 10 seconds later.
Then Jackson lost the ball, leading to a Joseph layup on the other end, dashing any hopes of more late-game heroics.
“Every time,” Morris said. “That’s what good team does though. When you mess up and make mistakes, they make you pay for it.”
Pistons vs. Raptors final score: Bad second quarter dooms Detroit in 103-89 loss | Detroit Bad Boys
Toronto knows how to win games and they proved it Monday night. They’ve won 14 of their last 15 games.
The Pistons got great play from their supporting cast. Marcus Morris scored 14 points on just seven shots with 5 rebounds and 6 assists. He found Drummond for two of his easy buckets of the night. Dre finished with a mighty ugly night without them.
Aron Baynes and Darrun Hilliard also deserve a lot of credit. Baynes put up 10 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists and Hilliard had a career high 13 points. Ersan Ilyasova offered 17 points, 6 rebounds, and also collected yet another drawn charge.
But the team’s stars weren’t very good. Reggie Jackson had just 13 points on 14 shots along with a technical foul and 6 turnovers while Andre Drummond had 12 points on 4-10 shooting and 3-8 from the line.
Toronto 103, Detroit 89: Pistons can’t stop Kyle Lowry, Raptors | Detroit Free Press
Morris did a good job of making things difficult for DeMar DeRozan, who was 1-for-6 in the first quarter with a turnover. DeRozan finished with 17 points on 5-for-14 shooting.
Postgame Quotes – February 8, 2016 | Detroit Pistons
DETROIT PISTONS FORWARD MARCUS MORRIS: (On how tough of a loss this was): “Real tough. They’re a good team. I think they won 14 of the last 15. We knew it was going to be a fight and we just didn’t get the win.”
(On Toronto capitalizing on the Pistons mistakes): “Every time. That’s what a good team does though. When you mess up and make mistakes they make you pay for it.”
(On keeping a positive attitude after the loss): “We’re trying to keep it positive. At the end of the day we have to win games. If we want to make the playoffs we have to win. We’re definitely positive and we definitely played hard, but we have to win, bottom line.”
Mistakes doom Pistons against red-hot Toronto Raptors: ‘They made us pay’ | MLive.com
“They made us pay for each time that we had a costly turnover, or a slip on defensive coverage,” Jackson said. “We just made a simple mistake. They’re playing on a high right now — they’re playing really well, and I think everybody got to see that tonight.”
The lead dwindled to single digits again in the fourth but Toronto opened the quarter on an 11-2 run, capitalizing off a series of missed layups and short-distance jump shots.
In particular instance, after Darrun Hilliard and Aron Baynes missed consecutive layup attempts on the same possession, Kyle Lowry, who scored 10 of his game-high 25 points in the fourth, grabbed the rebound and hit Cory Joseph streaking down the court for an easy layup two seconds later.
Toronto shot 55.7 percent from the floor, a season high for an opponent this season.
“We just couldn’t hang with them,” Van Gundy said. “They just made too many shots and had a lot more guys play well.
Pistons run over by Raptors, 103-89 | The Detroit News
The loss signified two teams heading in opposite directions, as the Raptors have won 14 out of their last 15, while the Pistons had dropped five of their last seven.
Three things after the Raptors rout the Pistons | Toronto Star
It didn’t happen often but a couple of times, DeMar DeRozan did precisely what aggressive guards and wings are supposed to do against good interior defenders and shot-blockers.
The first and most memorable was quite early in the game when DeRozan easily beat Morris off the dribble going right and was headed down the lane.
He had basically a clear path and of course it brought Andre Drummond into the lane because that’s what he does.
To his credit, DeRozan knew early what he had to do, just as important Jonas Valanciunas knew what to do. Valanciunas didn’t move with Drummond, DeRozan recognized it and made a nifty dump pass for an easy basket.
Three good things: DeRozan taking his man off the dribble, JV catching the pass and JV finishing.
Small things but they’re happening more and more frequently.
Stan Van Gundy maintains calm as Pistons’ good effort produces another loss | MLive.com
And there is one game to go before the All-Star break. The Pistons play the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday, followed by eight days without a game. A verbal lambasting might have lasted until then, but not beyond, so the more important message was to regroup and put best foot forward against the Nuggets.
“I was encouraging to our guys tonight,” Van Gundy said. “There’s a lot of nights, obviously, that I’m not. I say this all the time, and I hope our guys believe it: I’m not that hung up on the result. I’ve been around a long time and I think I’ve got a pretty good idea when guys are going out there and giving you everything they’ve got.
“Tonight, I thought our guys competed their (tails) off in a very tough night, at times very frustrating. I thought they hung in there and fought really hard and so I was trying to encourage guys. There’s been other nights when I don’t think they’re doing that and I let them know.”
Raptors 103 – Detroit Pistons 89: balanced scoring rules | Raptors Rapture
Kyle Lowry started slowly, but didn’t finish that way. He was scoreless in Q1, but shrugged it off, and led all scorers with 25. He added 7 assists, with 2 lonely turnovers. DeRozan didn’t dominate, but his ability to chip in even when struggling to score is remarkable. He finished with 17 points, 6 dimes and 7 rebounds. We all should have such off-nights.
Jonas Valanciunas acquitted himself exceedingly well against Drummond. He scored an efficient 15 points. While he pulled down no offensive boards, the Raptors shot 55.7% for the night, so there weren’t a lot of boards to grab. He had 8 on defense.
Cory Joseph matched JV in efficiency (7 of 9 for 15 points). Precious few teams have three guards who can consistently produce points and defend like our group. A hat tip goes out to Patrick Patterson, who missed just one of four 3-balls. He and Cory were a combined plus_47.
Raptors by the numbers: Time for Lowry, DeRozan to get more rest | Eh Game
Asking for less from Lowry and DeRozan over the rest of the regular season puts them in a position to do more in the playoffs. If that means Joseph and Ross make some strides in their development, even better. At the very least it’s an opportunity to see if they’re capable of being more than useful role players in the future and evaluate where they really fit as building blocks for this team. With a 4 1/2 game cushion for second place in the Eastern Conference, Toronto can afford to experiment some.
Terrence Ross a key player for the Toronto Raptors after turning his season around | RealGM
For someone who likes to avoid all type of contact, he has that floater in the lane thing going.
Three’s are very valuable in this league and he can hit them. There will always be a market for him because of this.
Apologize to Terrence Ross here | RealGM
When he doesn’t lay an egg in the playoffs, I’ll apologize.
Jamaal Magloire was part of the evolution of Canadian basketball | Toronto Star
“I’ve seen the evolution of this game, this city,” he said. “We’ve got 12, 13 guys now from Canada (in the NBA) and back then it was only three. That speaks . . . volumes for what Steve Nash and Todd MacCulloch and myself did for this country and Canada basketball.”
Raptors Coach Casey Keeps Singling Out Patrick Patterson | Pro Bball Report
Casey might not be wrong to be trying to protect (or promote?) one of his go-to fourth quarter guys either. Since Toronto began their current 14 win and 1 loss streak, Patterson has stepped his game even further. The points and rebounds have barely deviated from his season averages despite playing 27.5 minutes per game and shooting an improved 39.6 percent from three-point range, however, his team leading plus/minus has been averaging +11.1 and Casey hasn’t been shy about mentioning that stat after games on a regular basis.
This isn’t Casey’s first rodeo. He can read the same articles suggesting Ujiri is on the hunt for a power forward as everyone else and he might just know it for a fact as well – not that he could say anything. Casey can, however, let everyone know – subtly – the guys he likes on his current roster and why. Especially the guys that don’t have the jump off the page stats that make their value obvious.
Either as a sales job to the Toronto media just in case Ujiri doesn’t bring in an impact power forward in trade or to try and raise Patterson’s profile so Ujiri can make such a deal actually happen at the trade deadline, the message remains the same. Patterson’s value is a lot higher than just the points and rebounds he puts up each night and if you believe the message, Ujiri will have to land a pretty impressive player to make trading Patterson worth it.
Former Raptor Jerome ‘Junk Yard Dog’ Williams remains a fan-favourite | CBC.ca | Metro Morning
“The opportunity in Toronto was a blessing and I wanted to make sure I was there for my first official practice on time,” he recalled. He passed up a morning flight to join his new team as fast as possible.
Stories like this made JYD a fan-favourite in Toronto.
“My parents taught me that if I wasn’t having fun doing what I was doing, then I shouldn’t be doing it,” he said of his playing days.
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