The Pistons beat Orlando and that made it a good night. The Bulls lost at home to New York and the Wizards lost at home to Atlanta. And that made it a great night for the Pistons.
They’ll need a few more of those over the season’s final three weeks, but give them this much: They took care of business over the past six days, beating four lottery-bound teams at The Palace to ensure that the final 10 games of Stan Van Gundy’s second season are going to carry maximum weight.
“It’s the first time being in this situation,” said Andre Drummond, who had a 22-point, nine-rebound, 11-for-11 second half among his 30 points and 14 rebounds in the 118-102 win over Orlando that – combined with the Chicago and Washington losses – puts the Pistons back into the No. 8 playoff spot, ahead of the Bulls, with a little more breathing room between them and Washington to their rear.
“The rest of these games, every one counts. So every possession counts, every turnover, every missed shot, every missed assignment that we have. It all could bit you. So we’ve got to take every game and every possession seriously.”
Van Gundy has repeatedly and bluntly told his team – and the world at large – that its defense must improve if the Pistons are going to end the franchise’s six-year playoff drought in what will prove to be the toughest season to qualify for the Eastern Conference postseason in more than a decade.
He saw signs of progress against the Magic despite yielding 66 points in the middle two quarters.
“I actually thought our half-court defense tonight was a lot better,” Van Gundy said. “But we didn’t get back well and we didn’t block people out on the boards. Those were our two biggest problems, but in terms of just getting down and playing defense against them in the half court, I thought that was good.”
The Pistons held Orlando to .390 shooting, their first time holding an opponent under 40 percent since beating Philadelphia Feb. 24, 14 games ago. Their last three opponents had shot better than 50 percent.
That defense is going to get stiffer tests over the last four games of the home stand – all teams that rate in the upper half in offensive rating after beating four teams ranked 17th, 21st, 26th and 27th on offense.
Van Gundy has peeked at the finishing schedule. He knows it’s not kind.
“You look at the four teams who are fighting for those last two spots and we have by far the hardest schedule. It’s not even close. We’ve got a lot of work ahead for us to get in.”
The work they put in over the last four games at least means the basketball world will have to pay attention to them over these last three weeks of the regular season.