One team will enter the All-Star break on a three-game winning streak Wednesday night when the Detroit Pistons visit the Toronto Raptors.
The Pistons won their second straight when they opened a four-game road trip with a 110-104 victory over the Charlotte Hornets in a game marred by third-quarter fights.
Two players from each team were ejected from the game, including Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart of the Pistons.
The altercation started after Charlotte’s Moussa Diabate fouled Duren. After shoving, punches were thrown. When hostilities broke out again, Stewart came off the bench to defend Duren.
“Our guys deal with a lot,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “They are not the ones who initiate. They are not the ones who crossed the line tonight. … I hate that it got as ugly as it got. That is not something you want to see. But, if a guy throws a punch at you, you have a responsibility to protect yourself.”
“It was an overly emotional game with tempers flaring,” said Duren, who scored seven of his 15 points in the third quarter. “At the end of the day, we would love to keep it to basketball, but things happen. Everyone was playing hard. As the year has gone on, teams have tried to get into our heads.”
All-Star Game-bound Cade Cunningham had 33 points, nine rebounds and seven assists to help the Pistons end the Hornets’ nine-game winning streak.
“It says a lot about our grit and our resilience,” Cunningham said. “There was a lot of emotion to the game; fans were into it. For us to stay together and pull through, this is a great win for us.”
The Pistons and Raptors will be meeting for the first time this season. The Raptors won their second in a row by defeating the Indiana Pacers 122-104 Sunday to improve to 3-1 on their five-game homestand.
Trayce Jackson-Davis, acquired Thursday in a trade with the Golden State Warriors, made his Raptors debut and delivered 10 points and 10 rebounds in 15:31 off the bench.
“Trayce played well, and it gave us a good 15 minutes,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said.
Jackson-Davis became the fifth player to record a double-double in his Raptors debut — the first since Kawhi Leonard (24 points,12 rebounds) in 2018 — and the first to do so as a reserve.
Rajakovic prefers to wait before assessing his new player.
“At this point, I just want to let him be,” he said. “I want to coach him. I want to help him. I want to build him and see where we go. I don’t want to, based on one good game or bad game, to pass any judgment on him. I want to see a chunk of 10-15 games and see how he grows with us.”
Jackson-Davis said that before the game Rajakovic told him to “play free” and not to worry about the plays, but to play hard and rebound.
“So I leaned onto that,” Jackson-Davis said. “And then I’m a rhythm player. So once you start getting rebounds, you start putting the ball in the hole, everything else goes your way.”
Toronto’s Collin Murray-Boyles left the game after the first quarter with a lingering thumb injury and will not play on Wednesday.
Brandon Ingram learned Tuesday he will participate in his second All-Star Game. The Raptors’ leading scorer (22.0 ppg) replaces the injured Stephen Curry. Scottie Barnes (19.4 ppg, 8.4 rpg, 5.6 apg) is Toronto’s other All-Star.
