DeMar DeRozan goes up for a basket past Pistons centre Andre Drummond during the season opener on Wednesday.Dan Hamilton
It is opening night and Dwane Casey, the veteran coach of the Toronto Raptors, was anything but cool.
It never gets old, Casey said before the big unveiling Wednesday night at Air Canada Centre against the Detroit Pistons, and you can never really know what to expect.
"I get excited, I get nervous, I get anxious, I get mad," Casey said, running through the gamut of emotions he said he still experiences heading into the start of another NBA season, his sixth as the Raptors coach.
"To me it's kind of like the first day of school – getting ready, anxious," added Toronto starting forward DeMarre Carroll. "But you're also excited."
They were, overcoming some jittery moments early on to eventually outclass a lumbering Detroit outfit 109-91 before a welcoming capacity crowd at the ACC.
DeMar DeRozan, serving notice that his Olympic gold medal with the U.S. men's team in Rio this summer has lifted him into orbit, was superb, darting his way to a game-high 40 points.
DeRozan was unstoppable, sinking 17 of his 27 shots to set a club record for most points in a season opener, surpassing the 39 set by Vince Carter in 2003 against the New Jersey Nets.
Centre Jonas Valanciunas, hoping to prove he is more than just a pretty face on the boards, was also an offensive star. The seven-footer set a career high, with 32 points off 10 of 15 shooting. He was 12 of 14 from the free-throw line.
Rookie Pascal Siakam also did not look out of place in his first NBA game, scoring four points and hauling in nine rebounds in 21 minutes.
Tobias Harris led the Pistons with 22 points.
The lights were bright and the music was blaring – so what else is new? – as the throngs began to wend their way into the ACC on a chilly Toronto night for the start of the game. White T-shirts with a 3-D Raptors logo emblazoned on the front were hanging from the back of every seat of the arena.
It was sort of the theme of the opening ceremonies as the fans were encouraged to don 3-D glasses to watch the Raptors video tribute to themselves – in 3-D naturally – on the giant screens that hang above centre court.
During their preseason games, the Raptors had taken to linking arms during the playing of the U.S. national anthem, joining a number of professional athletes who have chosen that opportunity to express their personal views on police brutality and racial injustice.
This time the Raptors did not bother with the gesture, although members of the Pistons linked arms during the singing of The Star-Spangled Banner.
The Raptors are coming off their best season, winning 56 games and then advancing for the first time into the Eastern Conference final before finally bowing to the Cleveland Cavaliers in a gut-churning affair. The Cavaliers, who will provide the opposition for the Raptors in their second game at ACC on Friday night, went on to win the NBA championship.
The Raptors have most of the key core players from last season, and hope to up the ante this year, with an eye to dethroning the Cavaliers as league champion.
"I've forgotten last year until someone brings it up," Casey said.
He pointed to the Golden State Warriors, NBA finalists a year ago, who were wiped out by the San Antonio Spurs 129-100 on Tuesday in their season home opener with new sign Kevin Durant making his much ballyhooed debut on the West Coast.
"It's a new year, where everybody's 0-0 the last time I checked the records," Casey said. "It's a new season, a new re-energized approach, a chip on your shoulder. Again, you saw what happened to Golden State [on Tuesday]. You think San Antonio cared anything about what they did last year? So nobody cares at all. "He said that result, if anything, should open the eyes of all players.
"The way that they [the Warriors] got embarrassed, it should be a wake-up call for anybody, that anybody can be beaten in this league at any time in any place," Casey added. "And last year doesn't amount to a hill of beans. And even Cleveland, they won the ring last year but this is a new year."
Casey said last season as far as he is concerned is good for one thing.
"You're going to have a big bull's-eye on your back," he said.