BOSTON – There was much about the way the Pistons played the Celtics that fits their blueprint for winning: dominate inside, protect the basketball and force contested shots.
The Pistons got a huge game from Andre Drummond – 28 points and 22 rebounds, his fourth 20-20 game of the season. They scored 60 points in the paint. They got 17 second-chance points. They outrebounded Boston by seven. They held the Celtics to 44 percent shooting. They turned the ball over just seven times.
But Isaiah Thomas – quite arguably the best player in the NBA since the calendar flipped to 2017 with 32.3 points and 6.8 assists averages for the month on 50 percent shooting and 44 percent from the 3-point line on 10 triple tries a game with 93 percent foul shooting for good measure – scored 24 of his 41 points in the fourth quarter. And you could have driven a tank between the gap in the two teams’ 3-point shooting; while the Celtics shot 13 of 32 from the arc, the Pistons hit 3 of 27.
“They took five more (triples) and made 10 more,” Stan Van Gundy said. “C’mon. That’s the entire difference in the game. And Isaiah getting 15 free throws. Those are the two differences in the game. At some point, it becomes a make-or-miss game. You’ve got to get the ball in the basket and we couldn’t get it in there tonight.”
The loss was the third straight for the Pistons after a three-game winning streak to drop them to a season-worst six games below .500 (21-27) for the second time. Forgive the Pistons if they’re feeling just a little snake-bit.
“We kept fighting all game. Obviously, there’s no moral victories,” Tobias Harris said. “We know as a team we’ve got to shoot better. It was one of those nights for us. We just couldn’t get shots to fall. I thought we did a great job of holding our composure and continuing to keep battling. We’ve just got to stay strong together, stay positive, and hopefully – sooner rather than later – we’re going to have a full-package game.”
Van Gundy got some commiseration from ex-Celtics great Kevin McHale, serving as TNT color analyst for the nationally televised game, before tipoff. McHale noticed how the Pistons keep running into hot teams and can’t put both ends of the floor together on the same night.
“He’s exactly right,” Van Gundy said. “We got to Miami and our offensive numbers are good, we shoot the ball pretty well, and we can’t guard anybody. We come out tonight and really worked hard defensively against a very good offensive team and we can’t make a shot. It’s just … we just can’t get it together and play enough at both ends of the floor right now. It’s disappointing. I was proud of our guys tonight. I really was. They fought hard. We just couldn’t get the ball in the basket and I thought I did a (lousy) job in the fourth quarter.”
Van Gundy put Thomas’ 24-point fourth quarter squarely on his shoulders. Thomas hit 6 of 9 shots, 3 of 6 from the 3-point line, and all nine of his free throws in the quarter. It was his fourth 20-point fourth quarter of the season.
“I didn’t do a very good job in the fourth quarter. I should’ve come up with something better than what we were doing,” he said. “We should’ve had two guys on him or something. But I didn’t do a good job. So that one’s on me.”
“I think we tried to make it tough on him,” Reggie Jackson said. “He just got loose a little bit at the end. He’s crafty. He’s very crafty. Always aggressive, finds a way to get to the line, gets himself a rhythm and from there he just makes plays.”
Yet for all of that – Thomas’ monster fourth quarter, the 1 for 23 start from the 3-point line until well into the fourth quarter – the Pistons had two chances to tie the game in the final minute. Both possessions ended with Jackson missing driving layup attempts in a crowd.
“I thought I had a mismatch. Just tried to attack and be aggressive,” he said. “Wasn’t able to make shots. Definitely got to rewatch the plays and see what could have been done better.”
Van Gundy, who rode Ish Smith for a long stretch of the second half after Jackson was hit with his fourth foul in the third quarter, wasn’t satisfied with the shots the Pistons wound up getting on those critical possessions. Smith, Van Gundy said, admitted he needed to come out with 4:28 remaining.
“I thought there were plays to be made to other people for other shots,” Van Gundy said of the last two possessions.
The Pistons took a few leads midway through the fourth quarter, but Thomas answered with consecutive 3-pointers 33 seconds apart to tie the game at 93 and again at 96.
“The three ball opens up a big part of the game for him,” Harris said. “He’s crafty with the basketball. He’s a small guard, but very quick. And he makes shots. That’s the biggest thing. He makes plays out there.”
Against the snake-bitten Pistons, it seems, everyone makes shots these days.
“The one thing we know is no one ever misses against us,” Van Gundy sighed. “No one ever misses. It’s been incredible. That’s just the way it is.”