If there is a finite limit on the number of big shots an NBA team can make in any given postseason, the Cleveland Cavaliers are in trouble. Big trouble. Because they surely must have drained their allotment of heart-stabbing missiles in putting together the least one-sided sweep in NBA playoff history.
The Pistons lost 100-98 in Game 4 Sunday night, clawing back from the edge every time it looked as if Cleveland was about to pull away, and had a shot to win it on Reggie Jackson’s triple at the buzzer.
But big shots from Kyrie Irving – a half-court bomb to end the third quarter and a bloodless 3-pointer from 25 feet with 42 seconds left to put the Pistons down by four points – and J.R. Smith, including a triple from about 30 feet with 4:51 to go on an inbounds play with 2.7 seconds left on the shot clock, were fatal for the Pistons.
“They made a lot of tough shots down the stretch,” said Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, whose 3-pointer with 1:08 to go preceded Irving’s to pull the Pistons within a point. “We were right there. Played great defense down the stretch, got good looks at the basket. We made their shots tough.”
Stan Van Gundy wondered in the hours between another wrenching Game 3 loss on Friday and Sunday’s late tipoff if the Pistons would have the mental tenacity to weather Cleveland’s runs, given the stark reality that no team in NBA history has recovered from a 3-0 series deficit.
The Pistons did. Did they ever.
After a first half in which they never trailed by more than three, the Pistons fell 11 points down four minutes into the third quarter. An 18-7 run pulled them within a point and they tied it at 76 on Tobias Harris’ twisting layup with three seconds to go. That’s when Irving pulled up from half-court with Stanley Johnson challenging the shot to give Cleveland a three-point cushion, another in a string of buzzer-beating bombs to victimize the Pistons this season.
A 5-0 run in the first minute of the fourth quarter stretched Cleveland’s lead to eight, but less than three minutes later the Pistons were again within a point. The Smith bomb with a little less than five minutes to play made it a nine-point deficit. Again, the Pistons fought back to within a point on Caldwell-Pope’s big triple.
“Coming in, I didn’t think no matter what was going on, no matter how the game got, we would battle. We would never submit and quit to the Cavs. And I don’t think we did that tonight,” Jackson said. “I was very proud of that. To start the third, we went down by (11) where it looked like they were going to take over the game. Being down oh-three and for it to happen this time, I looked around at that point. What is this team really made of? Trying to see what the reaction would be. Coming out of the timeout, we talked about finding a way to compete and find a way to try to win. I think it says a lot about this team, no matter what situation we’re in, backs against the wall, nobody wavered. We took their best punches and we kept swinging back.”
“We talked about it for two days and our guys stayed in to fight,” Van Gundy said. “Stayed in to fight all the way to the end with a shot to win it at the end. I’m proud of them.”
The Pistons were the youngest team in the playoffs, a starting five with an average age of 24. Only Jackson among the starters had ever appeared in a postseason game when the series started. The Pistons held leads in the second halves of the first three games and were tied or within a point on multiple occasions of Game 4.
“It was a pretty competitive series for a sweep,” Van Gundy said. “I thought our guys competed hard.”
Harris had his best game of the series with 23 points and 13 rebounds. Marcus Morris scored 18 in the first half and finished with 24 despite being limited to 31 minutes with foul trouble. Andre Drummond had 17 points, 11 rebounds and two blocked shots and had his best game at the foul line, hitting 5 of 10. And Jackson finished with 13 points and 12 assists, his line marred by an 0 of 6 performance from the 3-point line.
It was that kind of series for the Pistons. Any frailty they revealed was costly. They averaged only 10.5 turnovers a game for the series, but Cleveland converted them into 16.8 points a game – an unusually high ratio. The Cavaliers shot 41 percent from the 3-point line for the series. And they negated the Pistons’ season-long strength in offensive rebounding, winding up with a 40-28 edge for the series.
Irving averaged 27.5 points; LeBron James averaged 22.8 points, 9.0 rebounds and 6.8 assists; Kevin Love averaged 18.8 points and 12.0 rebounds – the big three were all very big. Smith hit 17 of 33 from the 3-point arc and Irving 16 of 34.
And still the Pistons could have won any of games 1, 3 and 4 with even a modicum of luck or the occasional good bounce.
“The Pistons haven’t been in the playoffs in seven years,” said the youngest among them, Stanley Johnson. “That’s no excuse for us losing tonight, either, but keep our head high. We’re a young club. We have a lot of room to grow. Next year I anticipate us being right back where we left off.”