Raptors See the Misery of Tanking With Blowout Victory Over Pistons
It must really suck being a Detroit Pistons fan.
Sure, the path has been clear. The Pistons have tanked and tanked and tanked, failing to record a winning record in any of the last seven seasons. It allowed the organization to bring in four top-10 draft picks including No. 1 pick Cade Cunningham. But still, even this year, with Detroit genuinely trying to take a step forward, there’s just nothing to cheer for.
For the Toronto Raptors, even in mediocrity, at least it's not that bad. There's simply nothing fun about the 142-113 beatdown the Raptors delivered Detroit on Sunday afternoon.
It was almost immediate.
Dennis Schröder got the offense going working the pick-and-roll with Jakob Poeltl. OG Anunoby nailed his first three-pointer of the game in his return from a laceration to his right finger and Toronto quickly found itself up double digits.
It wasn't a stellar game offensively from Anunoby who was just 2-for-11 from the field and 1-for-6 from behind the arc. He declined to comment on how he injured his finger but said it didn't bother his shooting form at all.
Scottie Barnes rediscovered his three-point stroke after a quiet couple of games, nailing three first-half three-pointers, eventually sticking Toronto to a 20-point first-half lead and the route was on.
For the Raptors, it was a step in the right direction when it comes to first-half focus and energy. Take a Pistons blowout with a large helping of salt, but still, Toronto came into Sunday with the third-worst first-half net rating in the NBA and a 26-point first-half lead will certainly help that. The 69 points Toronto scored in the first half was the most the team had scored in a first half all season.
"We're playing in NBA, like you succeed in the NBA if you’re an everyday guy," Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said. "Sunday at 4 pm, you got to be ready to go. You're got to find a way to motivate yourself and get yourself in a right mindset to go out there and to do the best for the team."
Even with all that tanking from the Pistons, it’s still not clear that Cunningham is some future superstar or, frankly, even better than Barnes. He was good, sure, and maybe the context of Detroit’s team is holding him back, but he wasn’t some dominant force. He had 18 points on 7-for-17 shooting, held in check most of the night by Anunoby whose defense didn't look like it had missed a beat.
The biggest development for Toronto came in the fact that both Barnes and Pascal Siakam played well at the same time. Again, the Pistons aren’t exactly some defensive juggernaut, but still, it’s important to see that the two forwards with such overlapping skill sets can coexist at times.
Siakam scored almost exclusively in the paint, getting into his bag of tricks to beat the Pistons with floaters and post moves. He snapped an 0-for-17 shooting slump from three-point range, nailing one second-half three-pointer, and finished the night with 23 points in 28 minutes. Barnes, meanwhile, had 17 points in a near-triple double effort with nine assists and seven rebounds in 25 minutes.
“Both of them are same side players, both are very capable to drive the ball, to post up, to shoot, to do multiple things to be effective in pick and rolls," Rajaković said pre-game of Siakam and Barnes being successful simultaneously. “For us, I think it’s chemistry.”
As a team, Toronto's offense looked dominant, recording assists on 44 of 55 field goals, a franchise record for assists in a game. It was as complete an effort as anyone could have asked for, and finally up 34 in the fourth, the Raptors opted to call it a night, going with the second unit for the final eight minutes of the game.
"I think today it was just one of those games where the ball was on the string for us," said Poeltl who had 16 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists. "It's not just like one person with like 20 assists, it's throughout the whole team. Everybody was sharing the ball. Everybody was moving well. You created a lot of easy shots that way."
With the win, Toronto moved to 6-7 on the season and continues to look poised to be a team that, for better or for worse, will be stuck in the middle of the Eastern Conference. It’s not the most exciting place to be and there are certainly arguments to be made that tanking would be better for the long-term future, but when you see what that actually looks like, maybe the Raptors should be happy with where they're at.
Up Next: Orlando Magic
The Raptors will continue their in-season tournament schedule on Tuesday when they head to Orlando to take on the Magic at 7 p.m. ET.
