The Pistons understood the peril they were in – and still are – two weeks ago when they last played at The Palace and faced a five-game road trip. Their situation grew more dire when they lost two starters before returning home. But they survived that trip, going 2-3.
Those two wins kept them on the fringe of the playoff race instead of pushing them into long-shot territory. And that turned the urgency meter to full blast for Wednesday’s game against Atlanta, which held a 9-1 record over its last 10 games.
So they’ll need to string a few more wins together before they can talk about momentum or turning points, but the 118-95 wire-to-wire domination of the Hawks certainly registers as a most encouraging first step.
“We played well to start the game,” Reggie Jackson said, the understatement of the season. “From start to finish, we played extremely well and played with confidence and a lot of effort.”
It was 42-18 after one quarter. The Hawks spent 30 seconds for the remainder of the game – 30 seconds that came midway through the fourth quarter – with a deficit of less than 20 points.
There were a ton of gaudy stats, but the rebounding numbers probably tell you much of what you need to know: Pistons 60, Hawks 32.
“That’s astounding,” Stan Van Gundy admitted. “We actually did a lot of good things.”
“Credit to Detroit,” Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “They were better than us in every phase of the game. They were well prepared. They executed defensively, offensively. We couldn’t match them tonight.”
The Pistons moved to 20-24 with their second straight win and did it with both Jon Leuer and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope still sidelined. They’ll need them and hope to have both back for their next game, Saturday, when another team ahead of them in the East pecking order, Washington, comes to town.
But their absences created opportunities for Reggie Bullock and Stanley Johnson and both players showed the unique ways they make the Pistons a better team when they’re on top of their games. The Pistons missed Bullock, who’s played only seven games due to back and knee injuries, while Johnson struggled with a curious offensive malaise for much of the first half of the season.
Bullock’s shooting, passing and movement off the ball were on display as he scored 15 points to go with six rebounds and four assists in 36 minutes. Johnson, coming off perhaps his best all-around game of the season in Sunday’s win over the Lakers to end the road trip, followed up with another across-the-board effort: seven points, four boards, three assists, three steals.
“It’s still not what you want, but it’s certainly accelerated Reggie Bullock’s coming back and Stanley has clearly played a lot better,” Van Gundy said of missing two starters. “He’s gotten in a lot better shape and he’s played a lot better. Hopefully, we get those two guys back and your depth’s a lot better.”
“Those are two of our main pieces that’s out,” Bullock said. “When we get those guys back, with the energy that me and Stanley are trying to bring to both units, if we continue to keep that going we’ll be a tough team to beat with us two coming off the bench with our movement and ball movement and just hustle plays.”
Van Gundy has had to lean hard on players like Marcus Morris and Tobias Harris, who got the Pistons off and running with 15 of his 19 points in the first quarter on 6 of 7 shooting, while Leuer and Caldwell-Pope have been out. Morris picked up five of the team’s dozen first-quarter assists and threatened a triple-double, finishing with 14 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists.
“Can’t wait to have them back,” Morris said of Leuer and Caldwell-Pope. “They should be back by Saturday, I think. We’ve been playing well; just hold it down until they get back.”
Van Gundy called the first quarter the best the Pistons had put together all season, factoring in both ends. Drummond, he said, anchored a defense that caused Atlanta to commit nearly as many turnovers (six) as the Hawks had in baskets made (seven). Drummond finished with 13 points and 17 rebounds, but perhaps the numbers that best revealed his performance belonged to Dwight Howard: four points, three rebounds.
“I thought he came with really good energy and defensively he really anchored us,” Van Gundy said. “When he’s going to play like that defensively, we have a chance to be really good.”
The Pistons have had their share of highs this season, but their inability to sustain success has everyone a little wary of making too much of their demolition of the East’s hottest team.
“They key is you’ve got to do it more than once in a while,” Van Gundy said. “So we’ll see. Going into Saturday and going into Monday, can we sustain that kind of play going forward?”