AUBURN HILLS – The Pistons played well enough defensively to win 90 percent of games. They played poorly enough offensively to lose 99 percent of games. They held Toronto to 87 points, yet lost by double digits. They scored 13 points in the first quarter, but finished even worse: a nine-point fourth quarter in which they led by nine points with a little more than nine minutes to play and then seized up.
The culprit, as it has been since October, was poor shooting. The Pistons have had spurts of offensive competence and the occasional flash of brilliance. They’d even managed to compile a top-10 NBA offense out of the All-Star break – until the brakes got slammed on that this week.
Friday’s 87-75 loss means the Pistons have averaged 84.7 points in a three-game losing streak with the numbers trending in the wrong direction: 96 points, 83, 75. They’ve shot 10 of 52 from the 3-point line. Ten triples in three NBA games.
“You can’t win like that,” Stan Van Gundy said after the game. “You can’t get on guys about it. Nobody’s trying to miss.”
Van Gundy said team staffers looked at the shooting chart from Wednesday’s loss to Utah. Both teams got 27 uncontested shots in that game. The Pistons made seven, Utah 14.
Marcus Morris went 1 for 13 against Toronto after going 3 for 15 against the Jazz. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is 8 for 25 over the past two games.
For all of that, the Pistons led 72-63 when Tobias Harris tipped in Stanley Johnson’s transition layup miss off of a steal with 9:31 to play and it looked like the Pistons were destined to win a defensive slugfest. But they finished the game making one of their final 14 shots. They shot 3 of 20 in the fourth quarter. From that 72-63 lead, Toronto went on a 22-2 run and finished the game on a 24-3 kick.
Morris slumped at his locker for more than a half-hour after the game ended, still in full uniform, his head hanging between his knees, his back to the room. His teammates emerged from the showers with none of the usual postgame locker room banter present even after most losses. Reggie Jackson went to him at one point, leaned into him and whispered words of solace.
“Not panicking,” said Jackson, who led them with 20 points. “Thirteen games left. I know in my mind, we’re bound to make (a run). I plan to be in the playoffs and keep chasing it each and every day. Look at the glass half full. We played well on defense tonight. So I’ll that take out of it. Just couldn’t get a win because the ball just didn’t want to go in the rim for us. Somebody will take the lid off of it eventually for us.”
Jackson scored the only Pistons basket after Harris’ tip for the nine-point lead, a strong drive with 6:56 left to give the Pistons a 74-70 lead. He attacked the rim with more frequency and certainty than typical since returning from a knee injury in early December, shooting a season-high 10 free throws. But with five minutes left, Van Gundy pulled him when Jackson appeared fatigued.
“He looked to me, again, tired. I got him back in at the end, but he had one great attack at about the seven-minute mark to score and then we ran two more pick and rolls and he just came off slowly and really didn’t do anything,” Van Gundy said. “He just looked tired to me.”
Harris was the only other starter in double figures with 14 points, but Van Gundy also pulled him with 3:29 to go because, he said, Harris wasn’t having any luck against Toronto’s P.J. Tucker. That left the Pistons with few scoring options on a night Morris and Caldwell-Pope were firing blanks.
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to make shots,” Aron Baynes said. “The ball needs to go through the basket. That’s the only way to win in this game. I think the worm will turn. We have full confidence in the guys every time they take those shots. That’s the shots they’ve been making all year.”
With Miami’s win over Minnesota, the Pistons fell out of playoff position as their record goes to 33-36. Of their final 13 games, eight are on the road and they still have to play four more back to backs.
“Tomorrow, we’ll get back at it,” Ish Smith said. “You’ve got to be optimistic. It’s easy to beat yourself up when you’re down. It’s easy to feel really good when you’re making shots. What we have to do is continue to stay level-headed. When things are going well, stay level-headed. When things are going bad, stay level-headed. We’ll come out of this.”