Ugly. Pretty. Lopsided. Buzzer-beating. Resounding. Controversial. Tainted by a deal with a French judge.

The undermanned Raptors would welcome practically any type of victory at this point. Anything but moral, that is.

The Raptors last night dropped their fifth game in a row, 89-76 to the Detroit Pistons before a crowd of 18,491 at the Palace.

As oft has been the case in the past week, the Raptors did some things right and coaxed a handful of strong performances from their depleted roster. But they simply weren't perfect enough and didn't score enough to make up for the production usually provided by the injured Vince Carter, Dell Curry, Jerome Williams and Hakeem Olajuwon.