SAN FRANCISCO – With the memory of Sunday’s astounding comeback and utter fourth-quarter dominance still fresh, who didn’t think an instant replay was coming Monday after three quarters? The Pistons had hacked 13 points from their deficit to get within four as the third-quarter buzzer sounded, Reggie Jackson knifing through the defense for another slick layup, and Oracle Arena – by now jaded at the ridiculous precision of their defending champion Warriors – turned palpably edgy.
Maybe it wouldn’t have happened anyway, but two things conspired against the Pistons. The knee to the thigh Jackson absorbed on the play before that trademark knifing drive and the cumulative effect of three games in four nights up and down the great American west.
But the sun came up over the Golden Gate Bridge and showed the Pistons sitting at 5-2 despite having yet to face a team that doesn’t believe in its playoff viability. A few random thoughts on the first two weeks of the NBA season:
- If you hadn’t watched the first six games, you’d have thought Andre Drummond’s 14-point, 15-rebound performance against Golden State was impressive. And it was. Fifteen rebounds – how many guys in the league are going to hit that number even once all season? For Drummond, it was five under his average – his second-lowest total so far.
It was clear it wasn’t the same Drummond who snared virtually every contested rebound in previous games – extending possessions for the Pistons, aborting them for the other guys. Sprinkle a half-dozen of those throughout Monday’s loss to Golden State that he didn’t get to and how much different is that game after three quarters? Instead of down four, are the Pistons up four? Eight?
The Pistons are still figuring out how to make their offense run efficiently – more on that coming – but they’re 5-2 against really good teams anyway. More than any other single factor, it’s because Andre Drummond has emerged as flat-out dominant. And that’s going to take the Pistons a very long way, if not immediately, soon.
- As Drummond pointed out in the postgame locker room, the Pistons have 18 more nights when they’ll play a back-to-back finale. That’s close to one in every four remaining games. But only six more times will they be playing a team that didn’t also play the night before – the case Monday against a rested Golden State team, as if the unbeaten Warriors needed another edge. The Pistons have yet to have the reverse advantage – playing on fresh legs against a team on a back to back.
They’ll get eight of those over the course of the season. Last year, Van Gundy’s star-crossed first Pistons team was given a very bad hand. They had to play 16 games on dead legs against fresh teams and only had the reverse advantage half that many times. History shows that’s a critical factor in winning and losing. The Pistons will be a net plus-two for the rest of the way.
- Van Gundy is working on ways to exploit Marcus Morris’ scoring ability, which is fairly unique in today’s NBA – where the high pick and roll is populated by spot-up shooters around it. Morris is an isolation scorer with an uncanny knack for making contested jump shots and an effective mid-post scorer as well.
But it’s a balancing act to work that in without impeding the flow of the Drummond-Jackson pick-and-roll action. They haven’t found the balance in their offense yet, evidenced by relatively low assist totals and shooting percentages.
It’s also a reason why the Pistons aren’t getting anticipated production from their power forwards, Ersan Ilyasova and Anthony Tolliver. It’s not on them. Van Gundy doesn’t run plays for them; it wouldn’t play to their strengths. Their scoring chances are going to come almost exclusively from ball movement finding them as open shooters as defenses react to stop Jackson’s drives, Drummond’s rolls and Morris’ isolation chances. When you see Ilyasova and Tolliver getting a combined seven or eight open triples a game, you’ll see evidence of the balance being struck.
- Andre Drummond has won back-to-back Eastern Conference Player of the Week awards, Reggie Jackson has the flash that leads to 40-point games and 26-point quarters, Marcus Morris is opening eyes with play a level above what Pistons fans expected and Stanley Johnson tantalizes for his potential.
All of that has served to obscure what Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is doing. Remember his struggles on the road last year, when he averaged in single digits and struggled to shoot 30 percent? This year in four road games: 17.5 points, .529 shooting, .421 3-point shooting.
And that doesn’t speak to his defense, which was spectacular in the comeback at Portland and even better on dead legs at Golden State against two guys named Damian Lillard and Steph Curry, who together average 60 points a game.
He’s become a very important cog in the Van Gundy puzzle for his defense, athleticism, deep shooting range and – maybe more than anything – his competitiveness. Not sure there’s a guy in that locker room who hates losing more than Caldwell-Pope. And that’s saying something, because Jackson, Drummond, Morris – keep going, and don’t forget rookie Stanley Johnson, ferociously competitive – they were all a little raw after the Golden State game, feeling like they could’ve, maybe should’ve, won that game.
- And we’ll finish with a little more on Johnson, who scored 20 at Golden State. He’s figuring out how he can be an effective scorer at the NBA level and that won’t come overnight. Remember, two years ago he was in high school, where his strength was an overwhelming tool that allowed him to create easy space to score inside. That isn’t going to work with nearly the same degree or frequency against the best athletes in the world.
Here’s an educated guess: His learning curve is going to come on an accelerated arc. And the day isn’t too far away where Caldwell-Pope and Johnson aren’t considered the equal of any wing defensive duo in the NBA.