Raptors lobby for help after defensive collapse
Lowry, DeRozan say change needed after Pistons overcome 16-point deficit Sunday
For three quarters, it looked like the Raptors might just put their struggles from January and February to rest once and for all.
The defence was locked in. The offence was doing its thing and the Raptors went into the final frame up 16 on the Detroit Pistons.
Then every problem that has confounded this team for the past six weeks collectively reared up and turned a promising Sunday into a team nightmare.
The Pistons scored 36 points in the final quarter, taking their first lead since the earliest stages of the game on a Kentavious Caldwell-Pope three-pointer from the corner with just 13.2 seconds remaining.
The Raptors still had a chance to win it, but Marcus Morris defended DeMar DeRozan tightly as his 17-foot turnaround fadeaway jumper hit iron and bounced away, giving the Pistons a 102-101 win.
The Raptors offence, the one area that has been somewhat consistent, managed just 19 points in the final frame.
It was the script from hell and it cost the Raptors a game they never should have lost.
The mood in the Raptors locker-room afterward was expectedly dark, but with a bit of a twist.
With the trade deadline just over a week away, both Kyle Lowry and DeRozan were openly entertaining the idea of change, though to be clear, neither spelled out exactly what kind of change that might be.
Lowry, who could be seen engaged in a heated exchange with head coach Dwane Casey during a timeout in the fourth quarter, was the more evasive of the two, but there’s no question he is concerned about the direction this team is headed in.
“Keep putting us in the same situations over and over and not being successful, something has to give, something has to change,” Lowry said.
Asked if he knew what that change was, Lowry said he did.
“I have an idea, but I’m going to keep my mouth shut, keep it professional,” he said.
DeRozan said the idea of bringing in help is something that should be looked at.
“Help is always beneficial,” DeRozan said. “I never look at help as a negative thing at all. So if help is an option, why not?”
Casey, for his part, focused on his team’s inability to put an opponent away as the major issue facing his team.
“We put ourselves in position to win, but we’ve got to learn to play with a lead,” Casey said. “That’s our biggest issue right now. Some of the shots we take when we have a lead or we’re behind trying to get a lead may not be good shots. Those are things we’ve got to continue to get better at. I’ll take the blame on that. We’ve been concentrating so much on defence, but still offensively we’ve got to execute and make sure we take the shot we want to take.”
And defensively for three quarters, the Raptors were actually good.
By quarter, the Raps gave up 25 in the first, 20 in the second and 21 in the third. Only a complete meltdown in the fourth kept this one out of the win column for the Raptors, who outshot their opponents, out-assisted them, played them pretty much even on the boards and still came up on the short end.
DeRozan, who finished with a team-high 26 points, believes this team can get out of the funk it finds itself in, but it’s going to have to come quick.
“We can, but we have to be quick,” he said. “Twenty-seven more games, that’s going to fly by. We don’t have much time. When it comes to practice time, you know, we have to be able to take things on the go and run with it.”
Overshadowed in the loss was another fine performance by DeMarre Carroll, who is finding his offence over the past four or five games.
Carroll once again locked in from the field, going 6-for-9, including 2-for-4 from behind the arc for a 15-point night.
Carroll is now 22 for his last 35 field goal attempts, including 10-for-17 from distance over the past four games.
The Pistons got huge mileage out of its bench with Tobias Harris leading all Detroit scorers with 24. Among the Detroit starters, it was Caldwell-Pope leading the way with 21.
All told, the Detroit bench outscored Toronto’s 52-23 for a decisive edge.
The Raptors now head to Chicago for a game with the struggling Bulls on Tuesday.