Before Joe Johnson had completely wrecked Stan Van Gundy's Palace debut, the Pistons were still on the cusp of handing him his first Detroit win. A few minutes earlier, Caron Butler had provided their first lead since the first quarter, making three free throws with under nine minutes to play to make it 84-83.
They squandered their next four possessions two turnovers, two missed jump shots while Johnson was just warming up, hitting a driving layup, a 27-foot bomb and a 20-foot pull-up. The Nets, ahead by double digits for a good chunk of the game, were suddenly back ahead by six points.
It was an eight-point Pistons deficit with a little more than four minutes to play when D.J. Augustin lined up an uncontested 3-pointer, the type of shot he made at a 41 percent clip a season ago. It looked pure from the moment it left his hands and 20,000 Pistons fans were on the verge of eruption as the ball disappeared beneath the rim.
Except then it changed its mind--and its course--and bounced back out.
On the sideline, Van Gundy did a pirouette and a grimace. The Pistons were now 1 of 15 from the 3-point line. Seconds later, Johnson again, this time just to mix it up an 11-foot turnaround.
On a night a great player had a spectacular performance, the Pistons made one 3-point shot in 17 launches.
We never got a handle on him the whole game, Van Gundy said after Johnsons 34 points 15 in the fourth quarter, all in a 17-2 Nets run after that 84-83 Pistons lead led to a 102-90 Brooklyn win and made the Pistons winless through three games.
"It's the NBA. Guys are going to have great nights. Everybody knows what Joe Johnson can do since his Atlanta days," Brandon Jennings said. "He's a guy who just lives for those moments, playing one on one and getting his shots. It's tough with a guy like that 6-8, over 200 pounds. It's tough."
" It was great to watch," said an even more established Nets star, Kevin Garnett, pretty good himself with 18 points and 14 boards in 35 minutes. "I've got the best seat in the house every night, just to be able to watch that. I told him he was special. He played an awesome game."
Van Gundy opened the game with Kyle Singler guarding Johnson, who went 4 for 4 and scored 12 first-quarter points. He went to Kentavious Caldwell-Pope after halftime, threw in a little Butler, and that worked out pretty well ... until it didn't.
"We were trying to double team him, but we didn't want to run out," Van Gundy said. "We finally did at the end, but we didn't want to run out to 25 feet to double team with their shooting. But, look, he was doing a great job making shots and making plays. The guys a great basketball player and I didn't come up with anything to slow him down at all."
With Johnson essentially unguardable, the Pistons needed to match baskets and that proved impossible when their 3-point shooting was so errant. For the record, the only make belonged to Singler. Caldwell-Pope went 0 of 6, Jennings 0 of 3, Augustin and Butler 0 of 2. And it got into their heads. The trip after Augustins in-and-out miss, both Jennings and Augustin passed up wide-open triples, a possession that resulted in Augustin forcing the ball into the paint and missing a tough shot.
"One for 17 from 3, 5.9 percent? Yeah," Van Gundy said. "We had a couple of tough ones we had to take, but I thought we had some good open ones that we didn't knock in. I also thought there were three or four in the fourth quarter where we had good, open looks and didn't take them and turned them into tougher ones. That we'll have to look at."
Van Gundy cut his rotation to eight for the game--no Jonas Jerebko, no Spencer Dinwiddie or anyone else as a backup shooting guard with both Jodie Meeks and Cartier Martin still injured--and Josh Smith (44) and Caldwell-Pope (41) both played heavy minutes. Van Gundy admits he's groping to figure out an effective combination at the offensive end.
"Defensively, tonight we got tuned up by a great player, but I think we have an idea what we want to do defensively," he said. "But offensively, I've got to get a better handle--and I will. I'll keep working my butt off and well get it figured out, but we don't have it figured out right now."