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After checking off goal of making playoffs, Pistons raise the bar going forward

Reggie Jackson had been a Piston for all of two months when last season ended, but already prepared to bear the burden of leadership. He, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Andre Drummond – the teammates he knew would be going forward with him as building blocks – set a goal to end the franchise’s six-year playoff drought.

Mission accomplished. Next?

“Finals,” Jackson said without skipping a beat.

“I want to win a title. I’m sure the team does, as well. Realistic goals, we’ll sit down and talk. We always stay in touch. Everybody cares about each other. It’s kind of hard leaving each other. You don’t want to say your goodbyes or your see-you-laters. That was the tough part in the locker room. But we’ll set some goals, we’ll talk and figure out what we want to achieve. But I know siting down and talking to Andre and KCP, there’s not really another goal.”

The Pistons feel they’re positioned to make a leap next season similar to this year’s, when they went from 32 wins to 44. Even a six-win improvement to get them to 50 wins would put them on the cusp of legitimate title contention. They finished 17-9 this season – a mark that coincided with Tobias Harris’ entry into the starting lineup when the Pistons won at Cleveland Feb. 22. Extrapolate that finish over an 82-game schedule and the Pistons would finish with 53.6 wins.

That would have given them the No. 3 seed in the East this season with a six-game cushion over No. 4.

And Stan Van Gundy has cap space, a No. 1 pick and a general manager in Jeff Bower with a penchant for making trades that are eyebrow-raising good. Every bit as critical as the talent upgrade they’ve made to the roster has been the remaking of the chemistry. This isn’t a bunch that shrugs off losses.

“We’ve changed a lot, especially the program,” said Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, whose motor runs high. “We brought a lot back to the team, a lot of fire, a lot of fight, even to pushing into the playoffs. That determination we had to make the playoffs was one of the big keys that we had this year.”

It remains to be seen what the effects are of dipping their toe in the water with their first-round series against Cleveland, but the expectation is that it will help across several fronts. Perhaps their biggest achievement this season was establishing a mindset of a team that ignores the scoreboard and plays hard, ahead or behind.

“I think we showed a lot of resolve, just continued to battle,” Jackson said. “Proud of the way this team battled, what we accomplished throughout the season. I can’t really account or think of how many times we came back from double-digit deficits. Just proud of the way we played.”

They showed that to the end, playing Cleveland to the wire in three of the four playoff games and having a chance to win Game 4 on Jackson’s 3-pointer at the buzzer.

“Some of us have been here for a while and haven’t made the playoffs, haven’t had that taste,” Caldwell-Pope said. “For us to get that taste, it was great. Everybody on the team, just putting that effort in and getting us there, knowing we got swept, but just take away from that. We played the No. 1 team in the East and we know we could beat them. Got to come back with that same fight next year.”

That three-man core of Jackson, Caldwell-Pope and Drummond from April 2015 has now doubled to include Harris, Marcus Morris and Stanley Johnson. Beyond that, players like Reggie Bullock, Darrun Hilliard and Aron Baynes give the Pistons depth and flexibility, areas Van Gundy and Bower have the tools to further augment over the off-season. Any additions to the roster will arrive to find a competitive environment where the goals have now been ratcheted up.

“A goal of ours was to get to the playoffs and kind of change the culture,” Jackson said. “We feel like we’ve done that. As we reflect over these next few days and let it settle, you can take some great things from the season and take some things that keep you hungry and motivated to work.”