The schedule caught up to the Detroit Pistons on Thursday. With a day to rest up, they will try to start a new winning streak on Saturday against the visiting Toronto Raptors.
Detroit had its five-game streak snapped by Golden State, 107-104. The Pistons recorded a road win at Brooklyn on Wednesday and showed tired legs in the first half against the Warriors. They mustered enough energy to nearly erase an 18-point deficit but Malik Beasley missed a potential tying 3-pointer just before the final buzzer.
“We could have easily folded. We could have easily made excuses that it was back-to-back,” Beasley said. “We were down 10 at half and came back and made a great run, we just didn’t pull through at the end. But most importantly we showed the growth of this team, and we showed how much we have each other’s back.”
Cade Cunningham scored 25 of his 32 points after halftime. He’s averaging 24.3 points and 9.3 assists.
“That’s definitely our All-Star. At halftime he told us he was going to get going,” Beasley said. “He came out in the second half and did what he did. As a team we need to continue to ride with him and hold him down. If he starts off slow, we have other guys that can hold it down and have his back.”
The game against the Warriors began a stretch in which the Pistons play four of five games at home. The Pistons dropped back to the .500 mark but they already have five more victories than all of last season, when they finished with a franchise-worst 14-68 record.
The Raptors played one of their best games of the season on Thursday but still wound up adding to the loss column. They gave Eastern Conference leader Cleveland a tussle before succumbing 132-126.
“I wouldn’t say we’re satisfied, but we know we put up a good fight,” forward Scottie Barnes said. “We worked hard all game. We tried to make everything hard, every shot. We know they got a lot of shooters, so we tried to contest every shot. They have two 7-footers, (so) as best as possible, keep them off the glass. We just tried to make them work for everything and we felt we did that for most of the game.”
Barnes racked up 24 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists and three steals and reserve big man Chris Boucher delivered his best overall performance of the season with 23 points and 12 rebounds in 27 minutes.
The Raptors were ahead after three quarters but the Cavaliers outscored them 34-23 in the fourth. Toronto has now lost four straight and 15 of its last 16 games.
“We did a lot of great stuff (Thursday),” Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic said. “We know that in order to play against this team, we’ve got to make them make multiple efforts.”
Guard Ochai Agbaji, who is averaging 10.8 points, missed Thursday’s game due to a hip pointer.
This will be the third of four games in the season series. Detroit defeated Toronto in the first two matchups in November.
–Field Level Media
