Raptors move on from loss

TORONTO DeMar DeRozan called Friday’s loss to the Milwaukee Bucks a game the Raptors needed in order to get back on track.

Toronto moved back into the win column on Monday beating the Detroit Pistons 123-94 with DeRozan and Kyle Lowry leading the way with 20 points each.

“Not to make no excuse, but a game like last game, we kind of needed it to knock us back on track, especially coming off a break,” said DeRozan, who added seven assists. “We understand what we needed to do, what we need to get back to, and we did that tonight.”

Lowry added four assists and six rebounds while going 6 of 8 from three-point range as the Raptors (42-17) maintained a half-game lead on the Boston Celtics for first in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. Pascal Siakam poured in 11 points, six assists and five rebounds in 24 minutes off the bench.

Andre Drummond led the Pistons (28-32) with 18 points and 18 rebounds. Detroit has now lost three straight and six of seven overall while falling three games back of Miami for the eighth seed. Ish Smith added 16 points and three rebounds while Reggie Bullock finished with 14 points.

“Obviously we had a lot of offensive struggles and our bad offence led to some bad defence,” said Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy. “Two main things that have been pretty common over the last two games on the defensive end that we’ve talked about is we are not doing a good job getting back and getting matched up.”

DeRozan and Lowry each had 20 points as Toronto led 93-75 through three quarters. Drummond and Bullock each had 14 for the Pistons.