PHOENIX – The Pistons will get all summer to wonder what might have been. Thursday was a glimpse of what could be.
Reggie Jackson returned after missing 37 games and nearly three months with a severe ankle sprain. Like an ace starting pitcher coming back off of shoulder surgery, Jackson was on a limited pitch count. And if his command wasn’t quite there yet, you could see the stuff.
“I thought he was great,” Blake Griffin said after his initial pairing with Jackson since coming over from the Clippers in trade. “Playing in limited minutes, it’s tough – tough to get a rhythm, tough to feel comfortable. But I thought he was great. He ran the offense with confidence, with poise.”
Jackson played roughly the first four minutes of each quarter as Van Gundy opted to get him as many repetitions with Griffin, Andre Drummond and the starting unit as possible. Jackson finished with seven points and two assists in 15:21, hitting 3 of 7 shots. Perhaps most tellingly, he played with no hint of the tentativeness that accompanied his return from last year’s extended injury absence with left knee tendinosis and the platelet-rich plasma injection administered to address the issue.
“Feels good,” Jackson said of the right ankle that suffered a grade 3 sprain – torn ligaments, essentially – in a Dec. 26 win over Indiana that left the Pistons at 19-14. “Nothing wrong. Just try to treat it and make sure everything’s all right.”
Jackson drained a pull-up triple in transition in the first half, dropped a pretty pocket pass to Drummond off a pick and roll and penetrated into the paint before stepping back and draining a high-arching shot. In the second half came the play that pulled all three of the players Stan Van Gundy sees as a potent core together: Griffin hit Jackson around a screen to free him in space and Jackson, after pulling the defense to him, lobbed over it to Andre Drummond for a dunk.
“Regardless of what happens the last 11 games here, if we can get Reggie healthy and keep him healthy, with those three guys that’s going to be a formidable group to play against,” Van Gundy said. “This can be a good team. Nothing that happens in the next 11 games would change my mind. They just need time together and they need health.”
Griffin was again superb, finishing with 26 points, nine rebounds and 10 assists in 32 minutes, hitting 9 of 15 shots overall and 3 of 7 from the 3-point arc.
“Wow. I mean, he was great tonight,” Van Gundy said. “Great. Had I realized he was one rebound away (from a triple-double), I probably would’ve given him another minute or so. But 26, nine and 10 is a hell of a game. Just really, really efficient. He’s played great for us. Even though we’ve been struggling in this stretch, his last eight or nine games have been as good as just about anybody in the league. He’s playing outstanding basketball.”
It was a game similar in script to Monday’s win at Sacramento when the Pistons snapped an 11-game road losing streak. Again, they scored just 44 points in a sluggish first half, then pulled away in the third quarter. They wound up with a 66-point second half to beat Sacramento by 16, following with a 71-point second half and a 27-point win at Phoenix.
“We had a good first week or two, whatever that was,” Griffin said of his time with the Pistons. “But to put together two road wins back to back, no matter where they are, is huge, especially this time of year.”
The Pistons wrap up their six-game road trip with a significantly more severe test on Thursday against the team with the league’s best record, Houston. After passing his first test, Jackson is eager to stretch his minutes and log more time with Drummond and Griffin.
“I didn’t want to sit tonight,” Jackson said. “I’m always going to ask for the most minutes. The organization, training staff is doing a great job of making sure they bring me back the right way, but I want to play my 30 to 38 (minutes) immediately and go out there and try to help the team in any way get a win.”