LOS ANGELES – The last time the Pistons won at Staples Center, Andre Drummond was a high school junior and Tom Gores’ business portfolio didn’t include Detroit’s professional basketball team. It was November 2009 and nobody with the Pistons now was a part of that win.
“Finally got you a win in LA,” Stan Van Gundy hollered to Gores, who reiterated his confidence in Van Gundy while speaking to reporters at halftime, about 30 minutes after the 102-97 final in the corridor outside the Pistons locker room.
“It was huge. We really needed it,” Van Gundy had just said in his postgame press conference. “It was a big one to get. We know, every one of us in this organization – staff, people on the business side, players – we know we’ve got a great, great owner and we haven’t delivered a win here since he’s owned the team. So it was huge today to finally get one in here. That feels as good as breaking the streak.”
The Pistons had lost 11 straight – six to the Lakers, five to the Clippers – at Staples Centers, but Van Gundy’s greater concern was the three straight losses in the middle of the five-game road trip that wrapped up here. For all the travails of the trip, including injuries that again kept Jon Leuer and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in street clothes, to come home with a 2-3 record … well, it wasn’t the worst result.
“Feeling good about getting the win,” Reggie Jackson said. “I think we’ll be a little more light on this plane ride back home. It would’ve been super silent. It wouldn’t have been a pretty plane ride back.”
It looked like they were condemned to a brutal flight home when the Pistons shot 1 of 12 to open the game and fell behind 18-4. Van Gundy’s bench – just three deep except for the one second Beno Udrih logged to put another good free-throw shooter on the floor late – helped stabilize the Pistons and launch a comeback that saw them take their first lead on Andre Drummond’s 62-foot heave at the halftime buzzer.
“That’s how we won the game,” Van Gundy said. “Just look at the plus/minus numbers.”
Stanley Johnson’s numbers belied his contributions, though nine points, four rebounds, six assists, a steal and a blocked shot represents a pretty robust line. He and Ish Smith – back in his role as backup point guard after Van Gundy gave him a night off Friday – led the Pistons with plus-17. Aron Baynes, used over Boban Marjanovic when Van Gundy on Saturday decided he needed his best defensive players, was plus-10.
It was Johnson on the floor with the starters down the stretch of a fourth quarter in which neither team led by more than three points until the game’s key possession culminated in a Tobias Harris 3-pointer with 30 seconds left to put the Pistons up 99-95. He just beat the shot clock, firing without hesitation when Andre Drummond found him with a pass he couldn’t control from Jackson.
“I know where my guys are on the floor. Reggie threw me a great pass, (but) I couldn’t really get my hands on it,” Drummond said. “So the next best play was to try to tip it into Tobias’ hands. I tipped it to him in the shooting pocket, he took a great shot and it went in.”
For a team that had seen its first four opponents on the road trip nearly make half their 3-point attempts – Portland, Sacramento, Golden State and Utah were 58 of 119 – the Pistons were overdue to be on the right end of a triple for a change.
“Felt good,” Jackson said. “Tried to hit Dre on a late roll. They got a hand on it, Dre made a quick decision to tip the ball to an open guy he saw. I wasn’t sure if Tobias was conscious of what was on the clock, but when he raised up I was happy we were just going to get a shot and then, watching the flight of the ball, it felt like it had a chance to go in.”
Harris and Marcus Morris gave the Pistons 23 points apiece and Drummond wound up with 15 points and 17 rebounds after a messy start that included two turnovers and 1 for 7 shooting. He got himself going by stripping Lakers point guard D’Angelo Russell and streaking end to end for a dunk late in the first half, a few minutes before his 62-footer.
Van Gundy is reasonably optimistic that Leuer and Cadlwell-Pope could return on Wednesday when the Pistons host Atlanta. Reggie Bullock is back after a seven-week absence and Johnson appears again to be the player who emerged as Van Gundy’s valuable sixth man as a rookie after a ragged start to the season. At 19-24, the Pistons are just 2½ games out of the East’s final playoff berth and only three games out of the No. 5 seed. The schedule, with just 18 road games remaining, turns favorable.
“We said before the game, everything we talked about is still there for us,” Van Gundy said. “But not the way we’ve been playing. We have to change the way we’re playing. We’re not far out of it. We can still do it, but we can’t do it the way we’ve played for most of the last 22 games. It’s going to have to be a lot better. But it was a good step forward.”