Kyle Lowry & Norman Powell Can't Do It All For Shorthanded Raptors

The Toronto Raptors ask too much of Kyle Lowry and Norman Powell in loss to red-hot Detroit Pistons

Kyle Lowry knew he was going to need some help Wednesday night.

The Toronto Raptors were shorthanded, missing five players and almost their entire coaching staff due to COVID-19 issues within the organization, and Lowry and Powell knew they weren't going to be able to do everything if the Raptors were going to knockoff the lowly Detroit Pistons. So presented with a wide-open pull-up 3-pointer, the kind Lowry has hit what seems like a bajillion times in his career, the 34-year-old passed, finding Terence Davis in the corner for a wide-open look. It missed.

As it turns out, Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, and Fred VanVleet are pretty important to everything the Raptors do.

Toronto just couldn't get stops Wednesday night against the Pistons. Some of it was certainly a red-hot shooting night from Detroit who had their best offensive performance of the season. But it wasn't just good luck for the Pistons who downed the Raptors 129-105 in Amalie Arena.

It shouldn't have come as too much of a surprise that Toronto's defence struggled without its two All-Defence candidates in VanVleet and Anunoby. The Raptors were late in rotation and miscommunication across the board cost them open 3-pointers against Detroit. Wayne Ellington alone nailed eight 3-pointers, leading the Pistons with 25 points.

"Sometimes we were not on their bodies close enough. We lost vision for a split second, they were off, and they were making those shots," Raptors interim head coach Sergio Scariolo said. "So a little bit of everything."

If not for Powell things would have been a lot worse.

The 27-year-old soon-to-be free agent showed he's more than capable of being an elite scorer on a sub-par team. He led Toronto's motley crew with 36 points in 38 minutes while attempting on a season-high 20 shot attempts. If he wants to do that more often, he should have plenty of suitors this offseason.

Lowry took the opposite approach. He wasn't as assertive as he would have liked, attempting just 11 shots, two fewer than his season average.

"It’s tough. I really could have shot a lot more, I shot 11 times but I wanted to play the right way to try to keep everybody involved, keep everybody going," he said.

The Pistons certainly made it difficult on him, blitzing him in pick-and-roll coverage, but some of it, as he said, was just passive play.

He finished the game with 21 points and was one of just six Raptors players to score a point in the game.

Up Next: Boston Celtics

The Raptors will be on the first flight out of Tampa this evening heading for Boston where they'll wrap up the first half of their season against the Celtics at 7 p.m. on Thursday.