CHICAGO – With 10 games to go, the Pistons need to be perfect to match last season’s record. They need to go 7-3 to finish at .500. They’ve done that twice this season – Nov. 23-Dec. 9 and Feb. 1-23 – but you’d have to squint really hard to find signs that they’re about to go on a similar finishing kick.
And even a 7-3 finish and a 41-41 record might not be enough to save their playoff bid.
The Pistons play six of their final 10 games on the road, which isn’t terribly lopsided but still registers as problematic for a team with an 11-24 road record. In the Eastern Conference, only Philadelphia and Brooklyn have won fewer road games.
To further pile on, the Pistons still face three back-to-back sets – all of them against teams that won’t have played the night before – and that’s more than anyone else in the East. Two of those games – against Miami on Tuesday and at Milwaukee March 31 – are essentially must-win games against the two teams directly ahead of them in the Eastern Conference standings.
But the Pistons are 3-11 in back to backs this season and only Brooklyn (0-12) is worse among Eastern Conference teams.
So the challenge is, well …
“Challenging,” Andre Drummond said after Wednesday’s 117-95 loss at Chicago put another team ahead of the Pistons in the pecking order, the Bulls by virtue of clinching the tiebreaker over the Pistons.
“It’s a test of our character. We need to just go out there and fight each and every night. We’ve just got to go out there and play as hard as we can each and every night and we’ve got to defend.”
“The message I gave ’em is we’ve got 10 games left,” Stan Van Gundy said, “and if we don’t change the way we’re playing, this is going to get really, really ugly.”
The Pistons have had their knees wobbled since pulling even at .500 with their March 11 win over New York, losing five of six. Their loss at Brooklyn on Tuesday on Brook Lopez’s fading one-foot jump shot from the baseline at the buzzer was devastating and almost certainly had a carryover effect to Chicago.
“I just don’t know. Right now, we don’t have a lot of life in us and we’ve got to try to find some by Friday,” Van Gundy said.
He inserted Ish Smith into the starting lineup for Reggie Jackson at Chicago in an attempt to get games started with more energy after a series of early deficits. To the extent the offense perked up, the defense flagged. The Pistons were outscored 25-13 to start the game and 15-2 to start the second half.
Could more changes be in store?
“We’ll talk about everything and anything to try to turn this around,” Van Gundy said. “I’m not giving up on this. I hope they’re not, either. But I’m certainly not.”
Jackson admitted the team’s confidence has been shaken, though expected a day off before taking on Orlando would help reset it.
“It’s tough,” he said. “When we don’t make shots offensively, it’s starting to wear a little bit. But you’ve got to have short-term memory. We’ve got to shoot our shots. We’ve got to be confident and trust that it’ll happen.”
“I trust my guys,” Drummond said. “We’re a good group of guys here that are willing to put the work in and willing to fight for what we believe in. And we believe we’re a really good team. We believe that we belong in the playoffs. It’s going to take a lot of work now. We don’t have any room for error. We’re going to need to win quite a few games to put ourselves in a position to get back in the playoffs again. We have what it takes to be there, so we’re going to do it.”
Van Gundy put the onus squarely on himself for the situation the Pistons have found themselves in with three weeks to go.
“Clearly we’re not playing well, so it’s either the message isn’t sinking in or it’s not a good enough message or the teaching isn’t good enough,” he said. “I’m not separated from this. I think it’s pretty clear from these six games that I’m not finding the answers and not doing a very good job, so it starts with me. I’m the person in charge. I selected everybody in that locker room. I’m the one who wanted them in there. I decide who plays. I put lineups out there. I decide on defensive coverages. I call plays.
“So it’s all on me. I’m not running from that. Right now, we’ve got to try to find a way to get them back.”