The Toronto Raptors return home after a one-game trip to host the Detroit Pistons at the Air Canada Centre on Wednesday night. Both sides enter in small ruts but having met or slightly exceeded expectations for the season as a whole. And while they haven’t faced each other yet in the regular season, these are two teams that are very familiar with each other.
“Detroit’s playing really well, they’re a talented team, tough, they play to their identity. A team, we know how good they are,” Dwane Casey said at shootaround. “Like I told our guys, we’re getting everybody’s best shot and we’ve got to be ready to meet that and still approach the game with the hunger mentality, the aggressor mentality and not come in and try to feel out the game the way we’ve done.”
Slow starts have crept back in a bit lately for the Raptors. They dug big holes against Golden State and Philadelphia, and their second and fourth quarters continue to be better than their firsts and thirds, despite a turnaround for the starting lineup (+14.2 net rating in 373 minutes). Some of that may be January malaise, the recent injury to Kyle Lowry, or some regression for OG Anunoby, but whatever it is, the Raptors would be well-served to figure it out here in the middle of a tough month.
“Defensively, the intensity hasn’t been there,” Casey said. “Then the ball movement has been an issue in the first and third quarters, it’s creeped back in a little bit and we’ve talked about that, we’ve got to get out of that. We have to come out with a sense of urgency that we haven’t had...It’s tough to rely on. We got out of it, I thought we really improved in that area for a long period of time but like everything else in the NBA, it’s ebbs and flows and right now we’ve got to make sure we get back to the type of intensity and approach in the first and third quarters.”
They’ll get a chance against a poor first-quarter team here.
The game tips off at 7:30 on Sportsnet One and TSN 1050. You can check out the full game preview here.
Raptors updates
Kyle Lowry is back. He returned Monday, shot 3-of-16, reported soreness after taking two tough charges, and said at practice Tuesday that he’ll be just fine playing through any residual soreness. A bone bruise is entirely about comfort and pain tolerance, which might make Lowry his own worst enemy here. It also may take him a game or two to find a groove – practice time has been scarce of late, and Monday was Lowry’s first action since the injury.
“It’s tough. It’s very difficult to lay off and we don’t have sustained practices,” Casey explained. “We had a short practice yesterday but none that you’re going to get your conditioning. He’s getting his conditioning in, but one thing about Kyle, he came in yesterday morning and got some cardio in, exercise. He gets his work in, not when everybody sees it but he does Pilates, he does running so I trust that he’s going to get his work in.”
Fred VanVleet remains a game-time call. Casey said before the game that VanVleet was going to see how he felt after pre-game workouts but he sounded pretty sceptical that VanVleet will be able to go. The team just doesn’t see a need to push it with Delon Wright, Norman Powell, and Lorenzo Brown around to help fill in.
UPDATE: VanVleet is out.
PG: Kyle Lowry, Delon Wright, Lorenzo Brown
SG: DeMar DeRozan, Norman Powell
SF: OG Anunoby, C.J. Miles, Malcolm Miller
PF: Serge Ibaka, Pascal Siakam, Alfonzo McKinnie
C: Jonas Valanciunas, Jakob Poeltl, Lucas Nogueira
OUT: Fred VanVleet
TBD: None
905: Bruno Caboclo
Pistons updates
Detroit comes in here pretty banged up, with Reggie Jackson and Jon Leuer sidelined longer-term and Avery Bradley, Stanley Johnson, and Luke Kennard all questionable for this game. The Pistons have precious few high-usage lineups that have performed well, anyway, and so Stan Van Gundy having to mix and match in response to injury may not be the worst thing for the team. It was working earlier in the year, anyway. Less so of late, because it’s hard to be an above-.500 team with a key starter and a key reserve out, plus a number of other rotation players coming in and out of the lineup.
Check back before tip-off to confirm their statuses. Statusi? Stati? Check back.
UPDATE: Bradley and Kennard are active, Johnson is out
PG: Ish Smith, Dwight Buycks
SG: Avery Bradley, Luke Kennard, Langston Galloway
SF: Reggie Bullock
PF: Tobias Harris, Anthony Tolliver, Henry Ellenson
C: Andre Drummond, Eric Moreland, Boban Marjanovic
OUT: Reggie Jackson, Jon Leuer, Stanley Johnson,
TBD: Luke Kennard, Avery Bradley
Grand Rapids: Reggie Hearn, Kay Felder
Assorted
- The Raptors are hosting the first ever You Can Play night in the NBA tonight. Over at Vice Sports, I wrote about why.
- Raptors 905 lost earlier today in Canton. Bruno Caboclo remains on assignment, while Alfonzo McKinnie, Lorenzo Brown, and Malcolm Miller are up with the Raptors.
- Over at The Athletic, I dropped some reporting/scouting notes and quotes as they pertain to the Raptors/Raptors 905, coming off of The G League Showcase. Some interesting stuff in there.
- Also at The Athletic, I wrote about Santa Cruz Warriors prospect Damion Lee, new Minnesota Timberwolves signing Amile Jefferson, and former Raptor camp invite K.J. McDaniels.
- Over at UPROXX, I dropped some more general G League Showcase takeaways, particularly how the existence of two-way contracts have changed things in the G League this year.
- Kyle Lowry and C.J. Miles had dramatically different responses to the recent spat of fighting in the NBA on Tuesday, as you may have suspected. Lowry, t-shirt tied around his head, basically laid plain that anyone feeling froggy knows where to find him. Miles’ take was more measured but a little less entertaining.
Here are C.J. Miles’ comments on fighting from earlier today. I tend to agree with the spirit, but at the same time, I’m getting to get these wrestling jokes off. pic.twitter.com/dylkdJ6Cmq
— Blake Murphy (@BlakeMurphyODC) January 17, 2018
The line
The Raptors are 8-point favorites, down from an opening line of Raptors -8.5. The over-under is at 212.5 after opening at 211 and peaking at 213.5. It’ll be interesting to see if the line moves with four players questionable or if the statuses in question have already been effectively priced in.
