MILWAUKEE – Milwaukee missed its first three shots against the Pistons, grabbed all three rebounds and scored a Jabari Parker layup. To Stan Van Gundy, the rest of the game was that play on a loop.
"They had a lot of possessions like that," he said – tersely and glumly – after the Pistons lost their fifth straight game, 98-86 to the Bucks. "That wasn't the only one."
Van Gundy used the two days of practice the Pistons had between games – a rarity in a condensed first month of the schedule that has squeezed practice time vital to a coach overhauling systems – to tweak an offense he knew had become too predictable. For 12 minutes, it looked as if he'd unlocked a wealth of power and potential. Andre Drummond finished the quarter with five dunks and a tip-in and the Pistons piled up 31 points to lead by five.
They didn't reach 20 in any of the next three quarters.
But the extension of their offensive malaise was the thing that probably galled Van Gundy least about the most recent Pistons loss.
"We gave them 19 offensive rebounds, we had 19 turnovers and we were 7 for 17 at the free-throw line. They hit 10 threes. That's it," Van Gundy said. "There's the four factors in the game. There's really nothing else to talk about."
Despite the 3-11 record, Van Gundy hasn't quibbled with his team's competitiveness this season until this one. He's maintained all along that they experience lapses in focus on a handful of possessions each game that prove fatal, but he hadn't seen a lack of fight until this game and he was in no mood to entertain possible underlying reasons.
The Pistons played without Brandon Jennings, hurt in last week's loss at Atlanta with a sprained left thumb that didn't allow him a normal shooting motion, but Van Gundy scoffed at the loss of their point guard for the offensive swoon over the last three quarters.
"We had one guy out," he said. "I mean, that happens all the time in the NBA. I don't think Brandon had anything to do with us giving up 19 offensive rebounds."
"We all are disappointed," said Kyle Singler, who had eight first-half points off the bench. "They outplayed us. They put a lot more effort into the game. They hurt us on just the hustle plays and offensive rebounds. We've very disappointed."
"When you're talking about rebounding, it's definitely effort," Greg Monroe said. "I guess you could say we had to play with more energy."
Drummond's performance – 23 points on 11 of 15 shooting to go with 10 rebounds and two blocks – goes down as the beacon of hope for the Pistons to carry into Wednesday's game against the Clippers at The Palace. He ran the floor the way Van Gundy has encouraged him to do since signing up for the job and emphatically finished several sharp lob feeds from D.J. Augustin, who shouldered 37 minutes at point guard in Jennings' absence, and Josh Smith.
Monroe said the Pistons needed to continue to do more such damage around the rim after the first quarter.
"We've got to do what the strength of our team is," he said. "We've got to go with what's working for us – just attacking the rim. That's basically it. We obviously have the personnel where the ball should be in the paint. I think we kind of got away from that after the first quarter."
Van Gundy was asked if the first-quarter explosion was the result of the offensive tweaks he had talked about implementing over the past few days.
"I have no idea," he said. "When you give up 19 offensive rebounds and turn the ball over 19 times, I'm sorry. I'm not going to find any positives in the game."