Stan Van Gundy would love to feel confident his team could win a game in which it doesn’t score 100 points. But there are no categories of wins at this time of the season.
“I don’t care how many points we score,” Marcus Morris said after scoring 24 – and hitting 6 of 6 from the 3-point arc in a dazzling first half that saw the Pistons go up by 18 and score a season-high 67 points – in their 115-108 win. “I just want to win. I would like to defend better, but if they score 150 and we score 151 …”
The Pistons surely were not in a place to be particular about how they won Friday night after losing two straight and falling behind Chicago in the race for the eighth and final playoff spot in the East. The win over Sacramento lifts them to 35-34, technically still behind Chicago on percentage points, with seven more home games ahead before what appears a massively important date with the Bulls at Chicago April 2.
“It’s just a win,” Van Gundy said. “It’s a good win. Doesn’t matter how the game goes.”
As in Wednesday’s 118-114 loss to Atlanta, points came easily – perhaps too much so – in the first half for the Pistons. They hit 10 of 17 from the 3-point line and scored 39 points in the first quarter. Again like Wednesday, their shooting went south in the second half when they hit less than 40 percent of their shots and just 18 percent from the 3-point line.
But their two makes – in 11 tries – were big, big, big. Both came from Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who finished with 23 points, 55 seconds apart to put the Pistons ahead by six and then by nine points.
“He’s been playing really, really well. He really has – at both ends,” Van Gundy said. “You’ve got to hand it to him. He’s been our most consistent player of late.”
“We needed big shots. We needed big baskets,” Caldwell-Pope said. “Tonight was big. Tonight we got back on track.”
Van Gundy isn’t going to love what’s happening to his team’s defensive ranking of late, but the individual offensive numbers for his starters were again impressive.
Reggie Jackson, who left the court abruptly late in the first half and rushed to a garbage can behind the Pistons bench to get sick after visiting the doctor’s office on Thursday, finished with 19 points, nine assists and seven rebounds. Tobias Harris had 17 points, five boards and three assists. And Andre Drummond had 14 points, 11 boards, three blocks and two steals.
The bench numbers weren’t as notable, but don’t overlook Steve Blake’s seven assists and Aron Baynes’ nine point-nine rebound contribution in 20 minutes as Drummond dodged foul trouble and sat for nearly the last four minutes with Van Gundy anticipating Sacramento’s use of intentional fouls to make him shoot free throws.
“Reggie Jackson told me they were going to foul him. I looked down at their bench, George (Karl) was talking to his assistants and it wasn’t a time where we wanted to give away possessions. So we got him out of the game right then and Aron finished really, really well,” Van Gundy said.
Baynes’ fourth-quarter numbers: four points, six rebounds and a big block of a Rudy Gay layup try with 1:27 left and the Pistons up seven. Van Gundy used Reggie Bullock as the ninth man – Anthony Tolliver didn’t play, mostly due to matchup concerns – and Bullock hit his only shot, a triple, and grabbed five rebounds in almost 11 minutes, all in the first half. Van Gundy intended to go to him in the second half, too, but couldn’t bring himself to remove Caldwell-Pope.
“Cash,” Jackson said of Caldwell-Pope’s pair of clutch triples. “He was coming off. He was ready. It was the KCP we all know. All confidence. No conscience. Putting ’em up and putting us ahead.”
It would have been nice, all agreed, if the Pistons didn’t need those big triples – if they had the game well in hand by the time they hit 100 points with almost six minutes remaining.
But Jackson, who has said often this year the Pistons need to make defense their identity, was willing to tweak his stance after a win they desperately needed.
“Sounds crazy when you’re younger, but sometimes your offense can be your best defense,” he said. “We put pressure on you and take some of your best ballplayers out because we’re running downhill and they’re in foul trouble, it’s the same as defense. Sometimes you’ve just got to attack.”
Now, it appears, is that time.