The Raptors look to follow-up just their second loss of the season with a victory, and to do so they will need to go through the man who helped them learn to win. The night will be about basketball, but the story is about Dwane Casey returning to Toronto for the first time as a visiting coach since his tenure in Toronto ended last summer.
In his seven seasons in Toronto Coach Casey won a franchise record 320 regular season games, more than double second place Sam Mitchell (156 wins). Casey also had 21 playoff victories with the Raptors, which is all the more impressive considering the entire franchise won 11 games in total before his arrival.
Simply put, Dwane Casey is far and away the most successful coach in Raptors history and it’s not even close. No other coach even has a winning record from their time in Toronto, that is except for his successor Nick Nurse who enters the night at 12-2.
Casey deserves to be celebrated tonight. He wasn’t always the best tactician, and he occasionally clashed with the team’s best players, but much of where the Raptors are today at 12-2 should be credit to Casey. He took on a job that required him to coach Andrea Bargnani, Jerryd Bayless, Linas Kleiza, and Ben Uzoh. That’s bravery. And with all the changes over the years he built a culture of building the rock where the team competed almost every single night.
Detroit coming to town should look familiar now, just a little inverted. Many of the plays that Casey ran for DeMar DeRozan in the past are now run by Blake Griffin, as Casey has adapted to a frontcourt focused team in place of his old backcourt-heavy rotation.
The Pistons just have a .500 feel to them. After starting the season with an unrealistic 4-0 record (by a total of 13 points), Detroit went on to lose their next 5 games and currently sit at 6-6. They’ve largely beaten who they were supposed to beat (Chicago, Cleveland, Orlando, and Atlanta, with one upset over Philadelphia), lost to who they should lose to (Boston 2x, Philadelphia), and were defeated in a few toss-up games (Miami, Charlotte, and a split with Brooklyn).
If all goes to form, the Raptors are a better team and should continue this pattern.
With all that said, the Pistons still comprise an interesting challenge for Toronto. Detroit’s strengths match up well with some of Toronto’s deficiencies, mainly rebounding. We saw it again on Monday against the Pelicans where the Raptors were out-rebounded 61-50.
Detroit is the number one defensive rebounding team in the NBA at present, pulling down 76.8 percent of rebounds under their own basket. They are also the sixth best offensive rebounding team, with an offensive rebounding rate of 30.7 percent.
Taking care of the glass will be of central importance, and we can safely expect that Jonas Valanciunas will get the start against his son Andre Drummond. Drummond is the exact type of big that Jonas is built to play, a big body that doesn’t move the quickest and can’t stretch the floor (shooting 18.2 percent on just under one three point attempt per game). Through three games against each other last season Jonas had a plus/minus of +14.7 while they shared the court and +23.2 during the minutes Drummond sat.
While they don’t shoot them well, Casey has clearly brought last year’s Raptors three point revolution to Detroit. The Pistons are the second worst three point shooting team in the NBA at 31.4 percent, but shoot threes at the seventh fastest rate in the league (33.5 attempts per 100 possessions).
The best thing Detroit does is limit easy buckets. They are the best at limiting second chance scoring at just 10.6 points per 100 possessions, and are the fourth best team at limiting points off of turnovers (14.6 points per 100 possessions). The Pistons are also the second best at limiting fast break points at just 10.3 per 100 possessions.
Simply put, Detroit is great at setting up their defense and limiting you to one opportunity.
Anything can happen on a random night in the NBA, but the Raptors versatility should give them a big advantage tonight in a relatively easy win if they can score even remotely well in the halfcourt. Expect a big game from Jonas in the post and a bounce back in shooting from whatever that travesty was on Monday against the Pelicans.
But above all, anyone who is in the arena tonight needs to give Casey his due credit. Let’s celebrate that man who helped lead us from obscurity and sadness.
