Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse, frustrated all night by a whistle that was blown a little too often for his liking, finally had it and lost it on an official.
He was ejected, but the 19,548 fans at Scotiabank Arena gave him a hero’s goodbye, cheering him back to the locker-room. Detroit Pistons head coach Dwane Casey, who Nurse replaced as Raptors head coach in 2018, cracked a smile at the scene.
Toronto was down 16 points late in the third quarter when Nurse was ejected but the Raptors almost came back in a 108-106 loss to Detroit on Thursday..
“At that point we knew what it was, even before that we were kinda like, ‘OK, we see how the game was going, everyone in the arena saw how the game was going and what not and we just knew what we had to (do),” said Precious Achiuwa about how Nurse’s ejection gave the Raptors a boost.
“I think a lot of opportunities got taken away from us on both sides of the floor and just had to do whatever we had to do to get ourselves back in the game.”
Toronto’s comeback came up short as Casey once again got the best of Nurse and the Raptors after Saddiq Bey made a driving layup with 14.2 seconds left to put the Pistons up three points.
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Bey scored 23 points in the win for Detroit (16-47). Jerami Grant added 26 points and Cade Cunningham, the No. 1 overall pick in last year’s draft, had a 22-point, 12-rebound double-double.
Rookie Scottie Barnes, who was drafted fourth overall last year, scored 21 for Toronto (34-28), playing against his old high school teammate Cunningham.
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Pascal Siakam led all scorers with 28 points, but had a frustrating night with the referees, eventually earning a technical foul for arguing with officials.
“Tough game,” said Siakam. “We just didn’t want to let it slip away. We were hoping to kind of stay there. They made some plays, they made some shots.
“They got a little bit of distance there. It’s something that we didn’t want, but we fought back and gave ourselves a chance to try to win the game.”
Casey had been Toronto’s head coach with Nurse working as one of his assistants until May 2018 when Casey was fired in the off-season. Casey has a 9-3 record against the Raptors including six straight victories.
Nurse and Casey said before the game that Detroit’s recent run against Toronto ultimately doesn’t mean much.
“They certainly play good and have played really good against us in different stretches, and we haven’t played as well,” said Nurse. “I don’t really have any explanation for it. We just need to do better.”
Added Casey: “We run a lot of the same sets, with different names. We run a lot of the same actions — that could be something to it, but nothing more than that. There’s no personal (thing).”
Detroit led 31-22 after the first quarter. That lead got cut to 60-57 before halftime when Gary Trent Jr. hit a three-pointer with 1.4 seconds left to play in the second quarter.
The entirety of the first half was played without much flow as the two teams combined for 22 personal fouls, leading to choppy and uneven stretches of play.
Although the referees continued to be a factor in the second half, Detroit used a 14-4 run to start the third quarter to regain control of the game.
The Raptors cut the lead down to as few as two points in the fourth quarter but Achiuwa missed some key free throws that could’ve put Toronto over the hump.
Fred VanVleet missed his third straight game for the Raptors with a nagging knee issue and Toronto forward OG Anunoby missed his fifth straight game with a fracture in his right ring finger.
Toronto hosts the Orlando Magic on Friday. The Magic entered Thursday’s action with the worst record in the NBA.
Following that, the Raptors will embark on a six-game road trip beginning Sunday in Cleveland to take on the Cavaliers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2022.
© 2022 The Canadian Press
