Raptors fall short against Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons

The Toronto Raptors traveled to Detroit last night to face off against the Pistons and they nearly secured victory yet again. Despite an extremely potent offensive attack from Detroit, Toronto found themselves within striking distance as the game concluded. Once again, Toronto got excellent contributions from their bench unit, which empowered them to be in this game, but ultimately, Cade Cunningham and Detroit’s offense was too much to overcome.

Similar to the game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Chris Boucher and Jamal Shead came off the bench and gave Toronto’s offense a well-needed boost. Boucher and Shead finished with 14 and 10 points respectively. Boucher fired away from three like there was no tomorrow and he made 4 out of 5 of his attempts from downtown. Shead was a perfect 3/3 from the field and he drove the basketball very well last night. The recently returned Bruce Brown also had a nice game finishing with 14 points of his own. Brown knocked down his threes, spaced the floor well, and really sprinted in transition whenever the opportunity arose for some easy buckets. 

The starting lineup had some trouble last night efficiency wise. Scottie Barnes finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds, but shot 35 percent from the field. Barnes was taking a good amount of jumpers off the dribble and they just were not finding the bottom of the net. Even when he drove he was met with resistance at the rim, and his jumper was not enough to fall back on. Immanuel Quickley finished with 25 points , but also shot 35 percent from the field. Quickley seemed apprehensive for some of his attempts around the rim last night, couple that with some poor shot selection from behind the arc and you’ve got a recipe for inefficiency. RJ Barrett had one of his worst games of the season as he finished with a mere 10 points on 25 percent shooting. This included going 0/8 from three and 4/16 from the field, Barrett could not get into a rhythm to save his life.

It’s tough to survive in a game when multiple starters are playing so poorly offensively, and it’s almost impossible to allow a team to shoot 57 percent from and try to outlast that. Detroit shot 19/33 from three as a team and many of these threes were generated by Cunningham’s playmaking. Cunningham finished with a triple double as he hung 22 points, 10 rebounds, and 17 assists on the Toronto Raptors. Tim Hardaway Jr turned in a magnificent shooting night, scoring 27 points while going 7/8 from behind the arc. Detroit did find themselves trailing Toronto at certain points in the game but ultimately their offense simply got them out of the hole, and repeatedly burned Toronto from outside.

Once again Toronto has added to the loss column, but you saw the fight and competition that  you saw early season, that makes it feel like Toronto is truly building toward something. Next up for Toronto is a home game against the Golden State Warriors.

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