Quick Reaction: Raptors 114, Pistons 123

RJ was quite aggressive in the first half, especially beyond the arc and with some tough passes that led to five turnovers. Sometimes aggressiveness doesn’t lead to success and that was the case for Barrett in the first half. His aggressiveness led to his third foul of the first half with under a minute to go when he forced a drive to the rim on offence. He had an even worse second half and missed two huge free throws with just under four minutes to go when he had a chance to tie the ball game once again.

Scottie made a great drive and dish to Jakob Poeltl to get Toronto their first two points of the night. His first points came in the second quarter with a beautiful and one mid-range jumper. Barnes had good rim protection today and notably swatted Cade Cunningham at the rim with a ferocious block. He made yet another and one with a spinning hook shot early in the fourth quarter and showed toughness by being able to finish through contact tonight.

Poeltl started off heavily involved in the offence early in the first quarter with five shots but was only able to convert on two of them and one was a free dunk at the rim that was uncontested. His second quarter was quieter on the offensive end with only two shots but he had some great moments on defence. Yak missed quite a few push shots, which we have gotten so accustomed to seeing him convert on. He got beat really early on in the night with an alley-oop to big man Jalen Duren but he made a mental note of that and was able to break up the next two attempts. Just like Boucher, his offensive involvement fell off tonight but he didn’t let that affect his defence and was a huge presence at the rim all night long.

Gradey started the night with a risky pass that was almost picked off but luckily the Pistons committed a foul on the play. He had a nice bounce pass dish to hook up a cutting RJ Barrett early in the first quarter and was active on the defensive end early on. He connected on a corner three midway through the second quarter to get on the board. That three-ball got his confidence going as he added two more threes in quick succession. We also saw Dick take a Raptors technical foul free throw which makes complete sense, as he’s 13th in the NBA for free throw percentage. Gradey cooled off big time in the second half offensivley, but was still effective on the defensive end.

Quick had a solid offensive first half but he had a few really bad misses, especially in transition during the first quarter where he air-balled a reverse layup. His defensive intensity was superb though as he was able to come away with a steal that led to a layup on the fastbreak as well as force a Piston player out of bounds by just being a presence. Quickley’s ability to push the pace was shown late in the second quarter when he caught Detroit sleeping and was able to convert on a and one layup very early on in the shot-clock. IQ’s start to the third quarter was good but he cooled off as the quarter progressed. He came back alive late in the fourth quarter where he scored five consecutive points on back to back possesion to tie the ball game at 109 a piece. Quickley played well tonight, but he missed quite a bit of bunnies at the rim.

The birthday boy Boucher had special hair for tonight’s contest and started his night with a nice putback dunk followed by a three-point shot that led to a Pistons timeout. He kept his good momentum going with 14 opening-quarter points and only missed one shot in the opening quarter due to being put in a bad situation late in the shot clock. It wasn’t all offence too, Boucher had great defensive energy where he was standing his ground under the rim multiple times and came down with a few tough rebounds. Boucher was unable to find openings on the offensive end after the first quarter but he didn’t let that affect his defensive play.

Shead, just like Boucher kept his good momentum going in his opening shift with two points and two assists, most notably a beautiful dish to Bruce Brown late in the quarter for a three-ball. The backup rookie point guard saved the Raptors big time when he got back on defence as the only man back during a Detroit fastbreak and came away with a hero steal off of star guard Cade Cunningham. Shead had an unbelievable third quarter as a shot-maker as he was able to add eight points to the frame without missing a shot. That makes it two straight games in double digits and another good performance from Shead.

Brown returned after a one-game hiatus against the Cleveland Cavaliers due to rest. He started off taking a very contested layup, which he was unable to convert on and that’s starting to become a theme with him. He had some great defensive energy in the first quarter though. Bruce and the Raptors did a great job of guarding a Detroit inbound early in the fourth quarter as they were forced to call a timeout when they weren’t able to inbound the ball and got dangerously close to a five count. Although the former NBA champion had some bad misses tonight, he gave Toronto effective minutes.

We saw more of Kelly O in the first half tonight than we did the whole game last time in Cleveland. It wasn’t a memorable shift but he had a nice dish to Bruce Brown which he wasn’t able to convert on and played decent defence on a few possessions. He made a huge second-chance layup to start the fourth quarter and scored his first points at the same time. His playmaking was great as Olynyk came alive in the second half with most of his dimes and had yet another huge second-chance layup, cleaning up a Quickley miss.

Walter saw four first half minutes and was eliminated from the ten man rotation in the second half. The first round pick hasn’t been providing too much lately and tonight was no different.

Solid rotations tonight, only complaint would be that Boucher had 14 points in the opening quarter and didn’t recieve any second quarter minutes which kind of killed his offensive momentum. His Shead sub on defence for Immanuel Quickley led to a steal which gave the Raptors a transition layup specifically, Bruce Brown. He’s been poor with challenges and tonight he didn’t attempt one and you really can’t blame his choices too much.