TORONTO – Jerami Grant scored 24 points, including two key triples in the fourth quarter, and Dwane Casey’s Detroit Pistons beat the Toronto Raptors 127-121 on Saturday.
Pascal Siakam had 25 points and 12 rebounds in his fourth game since missing the start of the season recovering from shoulder surgery.
Isaiah Stewart added 20 for Detroit (3-9), which is last in the Eastern Conference.
Gary Trent Jr. had 23 points while OG Anunoby had 17. Goran Dragic added 16, Dalano Banton finished with 12 and Scottie Barnes had 11.
The loss was the fourth in five games for the Raptors (7-7).
Neither team led by double digits during the first three quarters of the back-and-forth affair. A frenzied end to the third quarter saw Banton steal the ball from fellow Canadian Cory Joseph twice in a row, ending with a massive dunk in one of them that knocked the crowd of 19,800 out of their seats.
The Raptors, in their black and gold City Edition jerseys, took a 95-93 lead in the fourth.
But the Raptors flopped in the fourth quarter, when Detroit hit five straight triples, two from Grant, that put the Pistons up 117-106. The Raptors scored five straight points to get closer to six. Siakam converted a three-point play with 2:04 left to reduce the gap to just three.
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Cade Cunningham, this season’s first draft pick, stepped up to the basket to make it a five-point game heading into the last minute. The Raptors missed four shots on their next possession, nearly ensuring defeat as fans headed to the exits.
History was made at the end of the first quarter when five Canadians were on the court at the same time: Raptors Banton, Khem Birch and Chris Boucher, and Joseph and Trey Lyles of Detroit. Kelly Olynyk could have made six, but the Pistons forward and the national team veteran are out for at least six weeks with a knee injury.
The Raptors were missing starting guard Fred VanVleet, who sat down with a groin strain that coach Nick Nurse said “has been bothering him for a while.” Dragic, who he rarely used, started in his place. Precious Achiuwa also missed the game with a sore shoulder.
Casey, meanwhile, has a young Pistons team this season, which presents some unique challenges.
“It’s fun,” said Casey, who coached the Raptors for seven seasons. He was fired after the 2017-18 season, the same season that he was named NBA coach of the year. “It’s exciting for me just because it’s pure training. Sometimes you want to pull your hair out because some nights guys make plays and the next night they don’t recognize or recognize each other on a basketball. But it’s exciting. “
The Pistons made their first five shots of the night to take an early eight-point lead. Trent Jr. had 13 points in the first quarter and his jump shot with 4:51 remaining in the period capped a 19-5 run by the Raptors that put them up by nine. The Raptors took a 34-31 lead in the second.
Neither team led by more than six points in a second seesaw, and Lyles scored on a dunk with 12 seconds left and the Pistons took a 65-64 lead at the half-time break.
The Raptors were coming off a 115-109 win at Philadelphia on Thursday that snapped a three-game losing streak.
Banton was playing his fourth game in four nights, after playing for the Raptors 905 in Mississauga, Ontario, on Friday.
“He played really well,” Nurse said of his G League game. “I think we always had him in our plans to play for 905. He has carved out a role in this team maybe faster than anyone expected. It was a bit of a difficult situation, playing four out of four. I wanted to play. There were some things I wanted to work on. For the bigger picture, it’s a good move for him and for his team. “
The Raptors are now heading west for a six-game road trip that begins in Portland on Monday. They will visit Utah, Sacramento, Golden State, Memphis and Indiana before returning home to host Boston on November 28.
This Canadian Press report was first published on November 13, 2021.
© 2021 The Canadian Press
Reference-globalnews.ca