Raptors fans scared of being the team to snap Pistons' historic losing streak

After taking a few days off around Christmas, the Toronto Raptors return to action tonight for their first game since Saturday.

But it seems like many Raptors fans are already looking past tonight’s contest and into the weekend.

Sure, the team faces off against the Washington Wizards tonight and the Boston Celtics on Friday, but all eyes appear to be on Toronto’s visit to the Detroit Pistons this coming Saturday.

The 2-28 Pistons are the opposite of a traditionally exciting team to watch — they’ve lost 27 games in a row, and with last night’s loss to the Brooklyn Nets, set an NBA single-season record for most consecutive losses.

Every team in the league seems to be doing their best to avoid being known as the squad that loses to the Pistons, who are currently on pace for the worst regular season record in league history.

And based on the way this year’s season has gone for Toronto, fans are quite worried they’ll be the team to break Detroit’s streak.

Should Detroit fail to beat the Celtics on Thursday night, they’ll head into the contest against Toronto with a chance to break the all-time losing streak record, set by the Philadelphia 76ers with 28 losses across two seasons from 2014-15 to 2015-16.

pistons are destined to get their first win against the raptors, the script is in don’t fight it

— ✨just vibes✨ (@MaFuzzyRaps) December 27, 2023

The fact that we're all nervous for this raptors/pistons game describes the szn in a nutshell

— Oly, (@olyodee) December 24, 2023

e v e r y single Raptor fan nervous about this Pistons game

— Tristan (@halfgood_) December 27, 2023

When the Raptors lose to the Pistons on Dec. 30 does it get Masai fired?

— Cole Hayes (@cole__hayes) December 27, 2023

Seeing my first raptors game in a couple days against Detroit I’m expecting an all-time fumble https://t.co/xjdr78Mv0n

— Sam (@ram_solfe) December 27, 2023

So what happens if the Pistons defeat Toronto on Saturday, Raptors fans??

Anything?? Life goes on??

— Chris Walder (@WalderSports) December 27, 2023

With Toronto sitting at 11-18 and 12th place in the Eastern Conference, any shot of the team being a serious playoff threat seems mostly out the window.

Barring a major trade or overall turnaround in team performance, the 2023-24 campaign is looking mostly like a second consecutive lost season for the franchise. They’ve yet to win three consecutive games in a row and have gone 3-9 on the road this season.

Of course, losing to a team that hasn’t been able to beat anyone since three days before Halloween would be a new level of embarrassment for the franchise, so it’s understandable why everyone is worried.

Toronto has had a bit of bad blood with Detroit over the years, although it seems like most of the major players have dissipated from that feud. Former Raptors coach Dwane Casey went 9-7 against Toronto during his five seasons in charge of the Pistons from 2018-19 to 2022-23, seemingly always getting his players up for a big game against Toronto.

While Casey remains in the Pistons organization in a front-office role, he stepped down earlier this year and was replaced by Monty Williams.

Toronto and Detroit faced off on November 19 earlier this season, where the Raptors won by a 142-113 score. It was then Detroit’s 11th loss in a row — bad, but not even halfway to how far they’ve fallen so far.

Maybe Toronto will make light work of Detroit once again on Saturday and it’ll be a footnote in a long season, or maybe it’ll be a game Raptors fans never forget. Either way, we’re just a few short days away from finding out the answer.

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