Detroit Pistons frustrated with 'unacceptable' effort in Toronto as losing streak hits 11

TORONTO — If Sunday wasn’t rock bottom for the Detroit Pistons, it would mean they’re in the beginning stages of one of the most disappointing seasons in franchise history.

It certainly has been one of their worst starts ever.

The Pistons dropped their 11th straight game, suffering a 142-113 shellacking at the hands of the Raptors. The game was essentially over early in the second quarter, when the Raptors took a 21-point lead while the Pistons missed shot after shot, struggled with ball control and ultimately failed to muster the energy needed to compete.

Many of Detroit’s losses during this skid — the NBA’s longest in a season not even a month old — saw the team counter long periods of strong play with mistake-laden stretches that cost them a winnable game.

There was no such fight Sunday.

Toronto opened the game with a 14-5 run, and extended its lead to 12 after the first period. It ended up becoming a 23-4 run that pushed the lead to 45-24 less than 3 minutes into the second.

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"The thing that we have to understand, especially when you’re down as many guys as we are down, is that you cannot play without a level of competition that allows for you to have a chance," Monty Williams said. "When we compete, we’re in games. And when we don’t compete at a high level with all five guys that are on the floor, it looks like it did tonight."

Remarkably, it’s the Pistons’ third 11-game losing streak since Feb. 10. They dropped 23 of their final 25 games last season, and have now dropped 12 of their first 14 this season.

Have losing habits become ingrained for this team?

“I can’t say that,” Williams said. “My job is to teach and help guys break habits that they’ve been in for a while. I can’t speak to what has happened in the past, but when I do see it, you call it out and call it up and help you guys grow. The habits have been something we’ve talked about since the summer time and we’ll continue to talk about it until it changes.”

Williams, of course, isn’t responsible for last season. The Pistons lost with purpose, shutting down most of their key players down the stretch to finish with the NBA’s worst record and best shot at drafting Victor Wembanyama first overall. But there’s no upside for fans, or the front office, to lean on now. Their injury report remains long, and the team is far from the leap it envisioned having during training camp.

Cade Cunningham paused while considering if last year’s finish has had any impact on the team’s rough start. Cunningham wasn’t around for it, as he was rehabbing a shin stress fracture that cost him all but 12 games of his second season. His return was supposed to signal a new era for the Pistons, ready to turn the page on the bleakest stage of the ongoing rebuild.

So far, the season has picked up where last season left off. It’s been a test for both patience and endurance. Since Feb. 10, the Pistons have four wins and 35 losses.

“It’s possible for habits to come from that, for sure,” Cunningham said. “You can’t allow yourself to play the victim, I think that’s the main thing. Can’t go out there and just try to see what teams are going to try to do to us. We have to bring our own fight to the game. It’s been games where we’ve done that. Tonight we didn’t do that. Tomorrow we gotta come out with the fight and some fire in us, and be pissed off about how the season’s went, and try to take home court. That’s the main thing. The fight level, we’ve gotta do that.”

The Pistons were without six players on Sunday, and have been without several core players — Bojan Bogdanovic, Monte Morris and Isaiah Livers — since training camp. Joe Harris has missed two weeks, and Jalen Duren has missed a week with ankle soreness. Killian Hayes joined the injury report for the first time this season Sunday, with a left shoulder sprain.

They’ve been reluctant to point to injuries as a factor in their slide. But their depleted depth has made the margin for error that much smaller. The Pistons have been undone by turnovers and excessive fouling — correctable mistakes. But they also dealt with shooting slumps during their two-game road swing against the Raptors and Cleveland Cavaliers, putting even more pressure on them to play flawless basketball.

But it wasn’t just the mistakes on Sunday — it was their lack of competitiveness.

“I think it does get to you when you lose a lot of games, especially as many as we’ve lost in a row,” Williams said. “Yeah for sure, it gets to you. But at the end of the day, what else are you going to do? This is not a rescue business. This is a man’s business, and you have to play and gain like a man and you gotta compete like NBA players do. We will get out of it. I have no doubt, because we have a connected group. We just have to handle adversity a lot better than we did tonight. “

Cunningham didn’t wait for the question to finish when asked after the game if it’s concerning that Williams had to question the team’s compete level during a double-digit losing streak. They’ll have an opportunity to break the streak on Monday, at home against the defending champion Denver Nuggets.

Then, they’ll have several days to regroup and reflect — and maybe even find reasons to give thanks — before returning to work on Friday on the road against the Indiana Pacers.

“Unacceptable,” Cunningham interjected. “We’re the youngest team in the league where we’re scrapping and clawing for everything right now. That should be the last thing that needs to be asked of us and talked about, how hard we compete. That should be a given. When we wake up in the morning it should be like, we’ve gotta get to the court. He shouldn’t have to ask that. That’s something that me and (Isaiah Stewart) are also trying to stay vocal about, and everybody gotta come with it.

“We’ve gotta be realistic about the situation. It’s hard to just be like, ‘we’re good,’ because we’re bad. We’ve gotta address that. We’ve gotta know what we’re not good at, and address it not only with our words in the locker room but on the court and huddles, and things like that. That’s the main thing.”

Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him @omarisankofa.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Pistons frustrated with 'unacceptable' effort as skid hits 11