AUBURN HILLS – If you want to see the NBA’s drift toward a game dominated by point guards and do it in a compressed window, check out the Pistons over the next six days.
“We’re coming out of the gate playing against great guards,” Stan Van Gundy said as the Pistons prepared for the final 25 games after the All-Star break starting tonight against Charlotte. “We’re going to go Kemba Walker, Isaiah Thomas, then (Damian) Lillard and (C.J.) McCollum to Jrue Holiday. We’re right into it.”
Tweaking and improving his team’s pick-and-roll defense has been Van Gundy’s priority all season and what he spent more time on than any other single issue during the week-long All-Star break. The schedule merely amplified his mission’s urgency.
“It’s every night in this league now on pick and rolls,” he said. “There’s all kinds of things you have to be able to defend, but you’ve got to defend high pick and rolls in this league to even have a chance defensively. So that’s where a lot of our work has been in these two days and that’s what we’re trying to figure out – ways we can get a little bit better.”
The Pistons present their own pick-and-roll dilemma to opponents, though the effectiveness of the Andre Drummond-Reggie Jackson tandem has been muted this season with Jackson missing the season’s first 21 games and attacking the rim a little less forcefully since his return. But Drummond said Jackson looked like himself in Tuesday’s first practice out of the break and Van Gundy seconded the notion after Wednesday’s practice.
“He’s looked good in practice these two days,” he said. “We’ll see going forward, but he’s looked good.”
Jackson said he used the All-Star break to stay off his feet and recharge his batteries for the stretch run after pushing himself physically to try to catch up after the extended absence.
“I won’t know until I go out here and compete but I feel good. I feel rested,” he said. “I think everybody feels good about getting a five-plus-day rest. Been a very fatiguing season for everybody around the league. Eighty-two games is a grind, but I’m starting to figure out in year six why the All-Star break is when it is.”
The Pistons can deal another blow to Charlotte’s dwindling playoff chances with a win tonight. The Hornets, embarking on a six-game road trip, have lost four straight and 11 of 12. They’re in the 11th spot in the East, 2½ games behind the eighth-place Pistons. Starting center Cody Zeller is doubtful with a leg injury and his backup, recently acquired Miles Plumlee, is out, as is backup point guard Ramon Sessions.
The injury-depleted lineup presents the Pistons with another set of issues, Van Gundy said.
“We went through it last game with (Dirk) Nowitzki at the five. Tonight it’ll be (Frank) Kaminsky,” he said. “If you look back, Brook Lopez, (DeMarcus) Cousins – all those stretch fives. That’s a challenge for us. It will be tonight, especially on the defensive end.”
As for the likelihood that the Pistons might be without a player or two pending activity prior to the 3 p.m. trade deadline, Van Gundy sounded skeptical anything would happen. He said there were fewer things in any stage of discussion than in his previous two seasons as Pistons president of basketball operations.
“The day before the deadline the last two years, we’ve had stuff we were working on,” he said. “Shoot, I was in bed at 9 o’clock last night. There hasn’t been anything going on, so from my standpoint it’s been the least busy of the three years that I’ve been here despite the fact that I’m desperately trying to blow it up.”
That last bit – “desperately trying to blow it up” – was Van Gundy’s facetious response to a question about one of the more hysterical speculative assessments of the mindset of his front office. He said the Pistons have engaged in numerous conversations across the league as a course of their due diligence.
“We talk about a lot of players, but we place a high value on our guys,” he said. “That’s why we probably will not be able to desperately blow it up at the deadline. You can blow it up if you want, just get rid of guys. But that’s not what we’ve been trying to do at all. We’ve placed a high value on our guys, but we’ll listen to anybody that’s talking, too, because we want to get better.”