CLEVELAND – Reggie Jackson wasn’t the only thing missing since the Pistons last played the Cavs here, seven months ago. So was the swagger the Pistons brought to their playoff series with the Cavs, the confident they oozed even in losing four straight – four dogfights – to the eventual NBA champions.
“It’s very disappointing. We didn’t match their intensity from the start of the game,” Tobias Harris said after the Pistons lost 104-81 in a game they trailed by 17 at halftime and by 32 in the third quarter. “They played a lot harder than us tonight on both ends of the court. We have to really get locked in and focused and be able to take it to teams. We’ve got to do a better job of that.”
He’d get no argument from Stan Van Gundy, who thought the Pistons got outworked in Wednesday’s loss in New York and couldn’t have expected that to be an issue a second straight game – not given the opponent and not given the 1-6 road record the Pistons carried into Cleveland.
“There’s no takeaway – we got crushed,” Van Gundy said. “They played harder than us. They played better than us. They moved the ball better. They played better together. They defended better. They did everything better.”
The Pistons had their moment of glory. They got 3-point baskets from Tobias Harris and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in the first two minutes for a 6-0 lead that actually provoked Cavs coach Ty Lue into a timeout 97 seconds after tipoff.
It went downhill fast from there. The Cavs took the lead for good at 12-11 and led by double digits, 30-19, at quarter’s end. The die was cast already: The Pistons struggled to get good shots and when they did they missed; they struggled just as badly to keep Cleveland’s stars in check.
Kyrie Irving finished the quarter with seven assists, the Cavs with 11 on 12 baskets. The Pistons shot under 30 percent in the quarter and finished the game at 30 percent in shots taken inside the paint. Part of that was the way Tristan Thompson contested shots, finishing with four of Cleveland’s eight blocks.
“The guy plays really, really hard,” Van Gundy said. “We need to find some people who play that hard.”
Asked if he was considering lineup changes, Van Gundy minced no words – or, more aptly, no word: “Yes.”
“As a starting five, any time you come out with that bad of a start and you’re not playing as well as we should play … he’s spoken to us and told us the disappointment,” Harris said. “We have to be better. Everybody knows that in here.”
Ish Smith, continuing to fill in for Jackson as he recovers from an Oct. 10 procedure to address the left knee tendinosis that’s cost him the season’s first 13 games, points the finger at his team’s consistently inconsistent defense – dominant at home, where the Pistons are 5-0, and submissive on the road, where they’ve fallen to 1-6.
“What we have to do is do our job as players,” he said. “Go out there and give 110 percent every night. Offensively, we’re not going to struggle. Yeah, we’ll miss some shots. OK, great. But really good defensive teams, you’re not going to be down 20. You’ll be down 10, 12, stay in striking distance. We’ve got enough guys to score the basketball. For us, it has to be strictly about defense.”
Nobody struggled to score more than Smith, who missed his first eight shots before sinking his final attempt. Pistons starters combined for 15 baskets in 54 attempts and not one of them cracked double figures.
The only good news? Aside from Marcus Morris’ 17 seconds of playing time to start the quarter, they all got the fourth quarter off and should be that much fresher for Saturday’s home game against Boston. The Celtics lost – at home – by 16 to Golden State after trailing by 29 after three quarters.
So logic says you’ll have two motivated teams meeting Saturday at The Palace. For the Pistons, they’ll have Van Gundy’s final words echoing in their ears. “We,” he said, “were awful.”