AUBURN HILLS – The Pistons are dividing their 26 remaining games up into five segments – bonus game comes at New York to finish the regular season April 10 – and keeping the goal a secret.
But it’s fair to guess they’re not setting goals at anything less than winning each five-game segment. And the only way to accomplish that is to win pretty much every game they’re supposed to win and steal one or two others along the way.
So how the Pistons approach Friday’s game at Atlanta to open the NBA’s unofficial second half will be instructive – and especially so given the weight of the game that tips off 24 hours later.
The Pistons play the first of their six remaining back to backs to kick off the playoff stretch drive by visiting Miami – the team tied with them for the No. 8 playoff spot with identical 26-30 records pending the outcome of the Heat’s game at Philadelphia on Thursday night – after they drop in on Atlanta.
And while the Pistons routed the Hawks on their first visit to Atlanta back on Nov. 9, leading 40-20 after a quarter, one of their worst losses of the season was inflicted by the Hawks at Little Caesars Arena on Dec. 23. Does that eliminate any chance of looking past Atlanta to Saturday’s potentially critical game with Miami?
“It should,��� Dwane Casey said after Thursday’s practice. “They beat us every which way right before Christmas. That’s the motivating factor – how they came into our house and handled us in every area of the game.”
Atlanta’s been a much better team of late, going 11-16 with wins over Oklahoma City, Philadelphia and the Los Angeles Clippers after an 8-23 start to the season. Rookie point guard Trae Young has been at the heart of the run-and-gun Hawks’ revival.
“Trae has played much, much better – playing like he’s capable of the last month, especially,” said fellow Oklahoma Sooner Blake Griffin. “We’ve got to make sure we don’t overlook them, but I don’t think that’s the case in this situation. We know what they’re capable of.”
Griffin, who spent two days resting in the sun of Mexico after playing in his sixth All-Star game on Sunday, has another reason why he’s optimistic about the response he expects from his team.
“We hit our stride, I think, right before the break,” he said. “That’s our biggest thing, to carry that over after the break. I thought we were just playing basketball the right way as a team, making extra passes, being on rotations defensively, trusting each other. That needs to carry over for us to do what we want down the stretch.”
Casey has the same sense after two upbeat practices with a fully healthy roster after the injury-played stretch that took the air out of his team’s 13-7 start.
“The way we played into the break was good,” he said. “Right now we’re 10th in defense. Offensively, we want to make sure we continue to take care of the ball. It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be a dogfight, as we anticipated going into training camp, for those last three or four spots. We thought that and we expect nothing different.”