The Pistons and Portland are two teams with similar records, facing similar situations and relying on similar players to drive their offense and their playoff hopes. The abbreviated box score will tell you Reggie Jackson and Damian Lillard played similar games Sunday night. The expanded box score will tilt heavily toward Jackson. And the eye test … well, the Pistons won by 20 points and Jackson was first in line for a gold star.
“He played great tonight,” Stan Van Gundy said after Jackson scored 30 points on 11 of 19 shooting, registering nine assists against just one turnover in the 123-103 win over the Trail Blazers, who’d been on a 14-2 tear before losing to Boston and Toronto prior to arriving at The Palace to wrap up a six-game road trip that opened with wins over Chicago, Indiana and New York. “One of his better games and a great bounce-back from last night.”
Lillard, coming off a 50-point explosion at Toronto in a two-point loss on Friday, finished with 26. But he shot just 8 of 22 and had seven of his team’s 13 turnovers.
In two games against Portland this season, both Pistons wins, Jackson has scored 70 points on 58 percent shooting with nearly a 5:1 assists-to-turnovers ratio. The Pistons averaged 121.5 points in those wins. The backbone of their offense in both games was Jackson and Andre Drummond bludgeoning Portland with an endless succession of pick-and-roll plays.
“Makes it easier for everybody,” when Jackson is attacking decisively off of those Drummond or Aron Baynes screens, Marcus Morris said. “I talked to Reggie a lot about the pick and roll. When he plays downhill, there’s nobody can guard him. He did a great job of attacking and getting guys easier shots.”
Jackson shrugged about his remarkable efficiency against the Blazers, suggesting it had mostly to do with great picks and Portland’s tactics playing to his strengths.
“They drop and I get a chance to really run downhill,” he said. “Bigs doing a great job of setting screens, floor spacers doing a great job of spacing the floor. They decided the options they were going to give up was the mid-range pull-up and floater, the two shots I’m comfortable with. I decided I was going to keep taking what the defense gave us.”
The Pistons completely befuddled Portland’s red-hot offense to take control early, leading by 14 after one quarter and holding the Blazers to 5 of 20 shooting and the high-scoring backcourt of Lillard and C.J. McCollum to a combined two points. The only offense Portland generated came from three Al-Farouq Aminu 3-pointers. But Portland pulled within four late in the second quarter with Lillard and McCollum scoring 24 of their 35 points.
A 9-0 run to open the third quarter gave the Pistons a 16-point lead and Portland couldn’t generate nearly enough stops after that to make it interesting. Jackson lit the fuse, but he had plenty of help. All five starters scored in double figures. Drummond was dominant with 14 points and 18 boards, thumping his ex-Team USA teammate Mason Plumlee, who finished with four points and two rebounds.
Morris and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, mired in shooting slumps, managed 35 points combined anyway, each sinking seven free throws. That wasn’t by accident.
“Trying to stay aggressive to get to the line,” Morris said. “Find other ways to score. We talked during the game. We both said, no matter what just stay aggressive, some are going to fall and just keep pushing.”
And when Van Gundy had to turn to his bench, thinned by injuries to Stanley Johnson and Anthony Tolliver, the Pistons were still able to match Portland’s firepower. Nobody was better than Reggie Bullock, whose resurgence has helped keep the Pistons afloat, winning four of six since Johnson went down nearly two weeks ago. Bullock played 26 minutes, hit all three of shots – two of them triples – and finished with 11 points and seven rebounds.
“It’s been great,” Van Gundy said of Bullock’s contributions. “To sit for 45, 50 games, not playing, and then play pretty well. You have to give guys a lot of credit. We’ve got a lot of guys like that.”
Then again, everybody got to play in their comfort zone in large measure because their point guard so clearly had this one under control. Go back to that expanded box score. The most telling numbers: The Pistons were 25 points better than Portland with Reggie Jackson on the floor, Portland 23 points worse with Damian Lillard.
“It’s real easy,” said Tobias Harris, who finished with 16 points, five boards and five assists, of playing alongside Jackson when he’s slicing and dicing. “Especially when he’s coming off, making floaters, driving. It opens up the floor for everybody else.”