If the Pistons lose their next 19 games, they’d have the same record after 22 games as they did last season. So, yeah, things are going much better – very much better – in Stan Van Gundy’s second season.
The Pistons improved to 3-0 – the only NBA team with a 3-0 record – with their 98-94 overtime win over Chicago on Friday night, a game that offered continuing validation of the makeover Stan Van Gundy and general manager Jeff Bower orchestrated over the off-season.
Fully 60 percent of the players in Van Gundy’s current rotation weren’t on the roster when last season ended. The recasting of the Pistons added shooting, depth, toughness and a defensive bent.
But you’d have to squint really hard to see evidence of improved shooting so far. The Pistons are shooting a ghastly .387 through three games and Friday’s 21 percent showing from the 3-point line (6 of 28) dropped their season average to .329 from the arc.
And all that does is underscore their tenacity and newly adopted affinity for digging in at the defensive end.
“We’re a really unselfish team when it comes to defense,” said Andre Drummond, who anchored a defense that held Chicago to 94 points in 53 minutes and .429 shooting. “We do our best to really help each other out on the weak side and we’re not selfish in terms of making our calls and letting each other know when something is about to happen – if a screen is coming, a back door is about to happen. If I come over on the weak side to help out, I know somebody’s going to have my back. We just have each other’s back.
What Drummond is to the interior defense, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is to the perimeter D. Remember his huge block of Rodney Hood’s attempting trying triple to beat Utah two nights earlier? This time he forced Derrick Rose to a long jump shot that would have won the game for Chicago in regulation.
“(Drummond) took away my drive. I should have pump faked, but it’s a learning experience,” Rose said. “A young guy” – Caldwell-Pope – “was sticking me, too. I should have pump faked, but it takes going through it to really learn for next time.”
“You’ve got to give a lot of credit to KCP and Drummond,” said Marcus Morris, the only player who really scored with efficiency for the Pistons, his game-high 26 points coming on only 15 shots. “I think they’re the head of our D. They play really hard and Drummond is a force back there. Any time you get beat, you know you’ve got Big Dog back there waiting.”
Morris got the Pistons off on the right foot in overtime, scoring on a contested 17-footer on the first possession. The Pistons forced a desperation 3-point heave from 31 feet with the clock winding down by Nikola Mirotic, then Reggie Jackson rushed end to end for a layup. The Pistons forced another tough shot – a Pau Gasol 16-footer – for another Bulls empty possession, followed by a 3-pointer from Anthony Tolliver. They led by seven in the second straight Pistons game where neither team ever led by double digits just 1:24 into overtime. The Bulls never got within a possession of the lead after that.
“It was just a grind,” Van Gundy said. “I’m proud of our guys. They’re fighting hard.”
Drummond finished with 20 points and 20 rebounds, his fifth career 20-20 game. Jackson had 22 points, seven assists and seven rebounds. Jackson and Morris willed the Pistons to points after they managed just 20 points in the final 20 minutes of the first half and trailed 39-35 at the break. They scored the first 18 Pistons points of the second half, Morris with 10 of them.
Neither team led by more than five points in the fourth quarter and even then only briefly. Over the last six minutes of regulation, neither team led by more than two points. It was precisely the type of game the Pistons lost with gut-wrenching regularity early last season, but they’re no longer shrinking from big moments.
“I don’t even think there’s a fear of losing,” Van Gundy said. “I think these guys are playing without fear right now. I think they’re just confident in getting the job done. I think when you defend, it takes a lot of pressure off you because you don’t feel like, geez, we’ve got to come down and score every time. We feel like we can get stops, so that’s a really good thing.”
So the Pistons won on Friday despite shooting .375 from the field, .214 from the 3-point line and 50 percent from the foul line. They did it because they outrebounded the Bulls 61-50, won themselves 20 extra possessions with offensive rebounds – Drummond had more offensive boards by himself, nine, than the Bulls had, eight – and forced 20 Chicago turnovers.
“Right now we’re defending and rebounding well,” Van Gundy said. “We’ve got to stay with that and improve offensively.”