ORLANDO - A lousy first quarter on defense, a worse fourth quarter on offense. Pretty much all you need to know about how the Pistons came to their 99-87 loss to Orlando. But Stan Van Gundy might want you to know something else: that the way the Pistons lost had more to do with effort than execution. And he wasn't particularly happy about it.
The first postgame question to Van Gundy implied that for all the ups and downs through three quarters, the Pistons were in position to win it to start the fourth when they trailed by only two.
"We weren't in position to win that game from the minute it started," he said. "We didn't put anything into the game for the first 18 minutes, then we played well for 18 minutes and that was it. You're not going to win games playing a quarter and a half out of four on an evening."
TEAM COLORS
The story of the game in Pistons red, white and blue
WHITE HOT – As fast as the Pistons established control of their most recent game, Wednesday's wire-to-wire win at Charlotte, they fell behind just that fast and decisively in losing 99-87 at Orlando on Friday. D.J. Augustin sparked a rally from 19 points down in the second quarter to pull the Pistons without five points at halftime and they were within two points a few minutes into the fourth quarter when Orlando went on a 12-0 run to regain a double-digits lead. Augustin scored 15 of his 21 points in the second quarter and Greg Monroe added eight of his game-high 24 in the period. Tobias Harris led Orlando with 22 points. The Pistons opened the fourth quarter 2 of 14 with seven turnovers as Orlando went on a 12-0 run midway through the quarter.
BLUE COLLAR – Josh Smith didn't have the shooting or rebounding night he's accustomed to producing, but still found a way to influence the game with his elite passing ability for a frontcourt player. He finished with seven assists, a few of them spectacular ones, including a pretty bounce pass through traffic to produce a layup for D.J. Augustin. Smith also contributed two steals and a blocked shot. Andre Drummond also struggled some offensively, but he blocked five Orlando shots.
RED FLAG – Stan Van Gundy knows if his big lineup of Andre Drummond, Greg Monroe and Josh Smith is to succeed, it has to dominate the glass and win the battle on the interior. That didn't happen against Orlando. The Magic outrebounded the Pistons in the first and third quarters, when that unit played most extensively together. It was just a 10-9 margin in the first quarter, but 15-8 in the third when the Magic grabbed more offensive rebounds (six) than the Pistons had defensive rebounds (five).
Van Gundy prophesied a potentially lethargic outing for the Pistons in the offing after he put them through a practice that stretched past 3½ hours on Thursday. "This is a lot harder practice than we would normally do after a game and with a back to back coming up," he said. It was pretty long and hard. I'm not going to worry about that in the exhibition games. It we come out one night and lay an egg because were tired, I'll take the hit on that."
But he wasn't taking the hit after this one because he didn't see an exhausted team, just one that turned it on and off sporadically.
"We were fine from the middle of the second through the end of the third," he said. "So when you want to play, you can. We didn't put anything into it mentally or physically. I wasn't happy and they shouldn't be happy, either."
They weren't.
"It was just a bad effort," said Jonas Jerebko, perhaps the Piston best qualified to judge that category. "They played harder than us and that's not supposed to happen. He's not the only one disappointed. I am and the team, as well. We've just got to bounce back tomorrow and maybe forget about this one. Take some things with us, but we didn't play well tonight and they outplayed us. They deserved to win more than we did."
Van Gundy lingered a little longer than usual in the postgame locker room before meeting with the media, too, and he was as blunt with his players as he was with reporters.
"As a team we have to come out with more energy," said Greg Monroe, one of two players--D.J. Augustin the other Van Gundy credited with playing well. Like he said postgame, "you're going to lose for different reasons. The one reason he said you can't accept is getting outplayed and the other team just playing with more effort. That's what they did tonight. We just can't let that happen."
The Pistons fell behind by 19 points midway through the second quarter before Augustin and Monroe led them back, outscoring Orlando 21-7 over the final seven minutes. Augustin scored 15 points in the quarter to go with three rebounds and three assists, and two more of his passes would have given him assists if not for missed layups.
Augustin finished with 21 points, Monroe with a game-high 24 plus 10 rebounds.
"He's a very nice addition to the team and to the locker room and to everything," Jerebko said of Augustin, whose role as no worse than the No. 2 point guard was solidified by the trade earlier in the day of Will Bynum to Boston for backup center Joel Anthony. "He's a great player, shares the ball and plays within himself. He played well today. Too bad we didn't have some other guys play up to his standards. We've just got to bounce back tomorrow."
Van Gundy started the big lineup of Monroe with Andre Drummond and Josh Smith for the second straight game. He's said the one thing the Pistons must do with that group on the floor is dominate the glass. But in the first and third quarters when they played the first parts of each quarter together, Orlando outrebounded the Pistons 25-17.
And Van Gundy had no difficulty discerning the underlying reason.
"We weren't very successful with any lineup tonight," he said. They played a lot harder than we did with a lot more energy. It's going to be hard to win games where teams play that much harder than you do."