Opinion | There wasn’t a lot of juice to a dull Raptors loss to the Pistons

That was a dog of game.

Sure, some of us took advantage of the low hanging fruit to use the Dwane Casey angle but that was mostly, for me at least, because it was easy after the actual game presented very little in the way of interesting things or talking points.

It truly was one of those ‘blah’ nights in the dog days of the season and pops up every now and then.

And I can only imagine the possibilities for tonight and the sixth game in eight days for the Raptors.

Yee.

Haw.

But, until then, a final look at last night.

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THREE POINTERS

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Too steep a price

I am definitely not in favour of the amount of video review that exists in all sports, although I think the NBA has done an okay job by limiting its use, especially by stopping the inane practice of looking at just about every single out of bounds play in the final two minutes of a game.

But there’s one other beef that I have that came up last night and a situation I think should be changed.

I can get behind the case of letting coaches keep the timeout they have to blow to initiate a review if they win their challenge.

It bit Nick in the bum a bit last night.

He did the right thing by challenging Siakam’s third personal foul in the second quarter and got the desired result. But it also cost him a timeout that he, or replacement coaches Adrian Griffin or Fred VanVleet might have used later on.

“I don’t really know what I’d like to see but I think if you win the challenge regardless, you shouldn’t lose your timeout regardless of what situation you’re in,” he said.

Maybe that’s the tweak that’s needed this off-season?

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On a roll

Of the very little good that happened last night, the second half put up by Precious Achiuwa is probably worth noting.

Yeah, the missed free throws were an issue but that’s going to happen; the way he was able to switch out on guards to defend, his patience on offence and just the overall way he performed stood out.

Finishing with 18 points and nine rebounds in 28 minutes off the bench was a pretty solid stat line and since it seems like Chris Boucher’s in one of his lulls, getting consistent play from Achiuwa is vital.

I do still say Thad Young is going to emerge as the big off the bench and now I wonder if it won’t be at the expense of Birch first, Boucher second and Achiuwa third?

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Keeping his word

Svi Mykhailiuk didn’t do much of anything in his rather abbreviated three-minute run in the first half but it was interesting to see him out there at all when the game was still in doubt.

With Svi coming off a 40-point game for the G League 905ers the night before, Nick had told us pre-game he might get a shot.

“You want him to go down there and get opportunities,” Nick said of Svi’s visit to Glorious Mississauga. “You want it to go well. I was glad to see him get so many opportunities in a one-off situation and get him to make some. As we’ve discussed before, you may see him out there tonight on the back of it to try to keep it going.”

He didn’t keep it going and really got no opportunities in his 2:50 run but I needed a third Pointer so there you go.

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All right, here’s the deal.

I’ve been going about a million miles an hour since the New Orleans-Minneapolis trip before the all-star game and I’m no spring chicken any more. And with Phoenix-Denver-LA coming up and with Gregor more than capable of doing the heavy lifting, I’m sitting out tonight’s epic against the Magic.

Oh, I will likely watch but having the option of not paying close attention or maybe even napping during the game is too good to pass up.

But I may also want to putter on Ye Olde Mailbag – and may even do that on a stool later this afternoon – so if you want to chat and send something in, just click on [email protected] and away we go.

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