SLAM DUNK – Andre Drummond fired one in from inside his own 3-point line, officially a 69-footer, to end Monday’s third quarter and pull the Pistons within five. As hot as Toronto had been and as much as the Pistons struggled offensively through much of the quarter, they went into the fourth on a huge emotional uptick. Then Kyle Lowry completed a three-point play on the first possession of the fourth quarter and the Raptors scored 11 points on their first four possessions to open their lead to 14. You could feel the life drain from The Palace – and the Pistons, for that matter. The Raptors, who have now won 14 of their last 15 games to pull within two games of Cleveland for the best record in the Eastern Conference, hit 11 of 20 from the 3-point line. They made their first seven shots of the second quarter to eat into a Pistons lead that reached nine early in the quarter, five of them triples. The Pistons did more than Stan Van Gundy could have anticipated against Raptors scoring stars DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry in the first half, holding them to 3 of 13 shooting and a combined 13 points. But the rest of the Raptors: 15 of 22. And then Lowry got cooking in the second half, when the absence of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was glaring. Lowry scored 18 of his 25 points after halftime.
FREE THROW – Stan Van Gundy firmly believes a team has to rank among the top 10 in the NBA to be a legitimate title contender. The Pistons were up there for most of the first half of the season, but they came into Monday’s game ranked 12th with a defensive rating of 101.9. “It’s been one for me that has been frustrating from my own standpoint of not being able to find the answer to it right now with a group of guys I think are good guys and want to work and want to get it right,” Van Gundy said. “At times our effort and focus haven’t been as good as it should, but I also think we haven’t been able to find the answers and that’s a frustrating thing. I’m sure it’s frustrating for them, but we’ve all got to keep working at it to get back to where it was earlier in the year. The positive part is we have done it, so it’s not like we’re a team that has proven itself incapable of defending. We’ve been able to defend well against really good teams, so we’ve just got to get back to it.”
3-POINTER – The lopsided loss obscured a terrific all-around game for Marcus Morris, who has had a string of challenging defensive assignments over the past 10 days, including LeBron James, Joe Johnson, Carmelo Anthony and Paul George. With Toronto missing its top two small forwards, DeMarre Carroll and James Johnson, he might have expected an easier night with second-round rookie Normal Powell starting for Toronto. Instead, Stan Van Gundy put Morris on DeMar DeRozan and had Stanley Johnson open the game on Powell. DeRozan finished with 17 points, more than six under his average, and seven of them came after the game essentially had been decided. In the first half, none of DeRozan’s six points were Morris’ responsibility. He was 4 of 4 at the line, each time sent there by someone other than Morris.Morris hit 5 of 7 shots from the field, including 2 of 4 from the 3-point arc, to finish with 14 points and added five rebounds, a team-high six assists, three steals and a blocked shot.
