Big fourth lifts Raptors over Pistons

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. The Toronto Raptors spent 39 minutes trying to get their game into gear Friday night.

When they did, though, it went very well.

The Raptors trailed the Detroit Pistons 72-63 with 9:13 to play, but finished the game with a 24-3 run to post a comfortable 87-75 victory.

“The basketball gods are good to you when you play hard,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “We didn’t shoot the lights out, but we played the game the right way on both ends, and when you do that, the shots will eventually fall.”

Toronto wasn’t spectacular offensively down the stretch, hitting seven of 14 shots, but it held the Pistons to one field goal in the final 9:31.

“All of that was defence,” said Norman Powell, who played the entire fourth quarter, mostly guarding Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. “We know that defence will carry over into offence, and once we started getting stops, we were locked in. That makes it easy on the other end of the floor.”

Serge Ibaka had 17 points and eight rebounds, while DeMar DeRozan added 14 points, eight rebounds and six assists for Toronto, which won for the second time in five games.