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Pistons rally from 19 down to tie, can’t close it out at Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS – Stan Van Gundy was bewildered when the Pistons didn’t come close in Wednesday’s opener to resembling the team they were offensively in a preseason in which they ball popped from side to side.

Twenty-four hours later, he was just plain angry.

“It was a collective meltdown and a lack of fight,” Van Gundy said of a critical seven-minute stretch to start the second half in which Minnesota stretched its lead from two to 19. “That’s very, very disappointing, more so than anything else that I could possibly see as a coach.”

You got the sense he would have been just as upset – well, almost – if his team had been able to complete the remarkable comeback, led by its bench, instead of what happened in the final 90 seconds that led to the 97-91 loss.

Caron Butler was magnificent, scoring all 24 of his points in the game’s final 18 minutes after coming on with the Pistons in free fall, and D.J. Augustin was very good for the second straight night, finishing with 20 points and six assists. And we’ll get to that in a minute.

But Van Gundy knows he’s going to need the guys he chose as his starters to give him more than he saw from them Thursday, and especially a better response when bounces and whistles go against them, as they’re going to inevitably do for stretches over the course of 82 games.

Minnesota shot 16 free throws to one for the Pistons in the first half. Then Andre Drummond got hit with three fouls in 34 seconds early in the third quarter. Brandon Jennings, upset over a few non-calls when he was jostled going to the basket, picked up a technical after the last of Drummond’s fouls and nearly picked up a second. Van Gundy yanked him at that point and rode Augustin the final 19 minutes.

“Calls probably didn’t go the way we wanted them to go, but we’ve just got to stay focused on the task at hand,” Josh Smith said. “That was putting points on the board and getting stops.”

You can assume Van Gundy was happy with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope among his starters because he played him nearly 42 minutes and all 24 of the second half. Beyond that ...

“We dug that hole – we just had a talk about it in there,” he said, nodding to the locker room. “We just absolutely melted down, hung our heads and basically the group on the floor was willing to let the game go. We got five guys in there who weren’t willing to let the game go and we got back in it, but that was very, very disappointing. That’s the first real adversity we hit this year and we failed the test – very badly.”

Butler and Augustin led the charge with help from Jonas Jerebko, Joel Anthony and Caldwell-Pope. With Butler scoring eight points in the final six minutes of the third quarter, the 19-point deficit was whittled to 10 entering the fourth.

A Butler triple with 1:43 to play tied it, but Thaddeus Young’s triple 15 seconds later was a momentum-stemming moment that likely released the building pressure Minnesota appeared to sense. The Pistons wound up getting a missed hook shot from Andre Drummond on the next trip, not by design.

“That wasn’t what we were trying to get out of it, but that’s what we ended up getting out of it,” Van Gundy said. “We ran pick and roll for D.J. and we ended up throwing the ball into the post.”

It might have been asking a little much of Butler to continue carrying the offense at that point, given the load he’d shouldered to that point. It wasn’t just his scoring, either. Butler also grabbed eight rebounds.

“Caron played well,” Caldwell-Pope said. “He came in with great energy off the bench, was knocking down shots. We kept going to him and he came through for us to get us back in the game.”

“An incredible performance,” Van Gundy said. “They played with some determination, like they wanted to win the game. You hope some of those other guys, some of your starters, can gain some of that at some point.”