The San Antonio Spurs that snatched away the Pistons' championship belt in a Game 7 bare-knuckled brawl 10 years ago won with defense. Spurs teams of more recent vintage have carved out a deserved reputation for peerless offensive precision, turning paper cuts into gushing eruptions of blood for their gutted victims. The team Gregg Popovich herded into The Palace on Wednesday to send the NBA into the All-Star break combined the best of both ends in a basketball clinic, a 104-87 win over the Pistons.
"They've been together for a while, so they move the ball very well," Jodie Meeks said. "They're the defending champs for a reason, so you can't really make a whole lot of mistakes vs. them because they'll make you pay."
The Spurs didn't put the ball in the basket with much greater regularity than the Pistons in a tentative first quarter. While the Pistons were matching their season-low for a quarter's production at 12 points, they only trailed by eight as the Spurs also were held under 40 percent shooting.
But they built a double-digit lead quickly in the second quarter, one they would maintain for virtually the rest of the game, on the strength of offensive rebounding. That's the Pistons' forte – they're No. 1 in the NBA at chasing down their own misses – and the fact the Spurs kept getting to loose balls ahead of them probably had much to do with the energy the Pistons expended in trouncing Charlotte by 28 points on the road Tuesday night while the Spurs were encamped in their Oakland County hotel awaiting them.
"We were a step slow," Stan Van Gundy said. "I thought we fought hard – I really did. I've got no problem with our guys tonight. We didn't have it. There wasn't a lot in the tank tonight. We were a step slow on a lot of things, but I thought they battled. The only thing I was really disappointed in tonight was our rebounding."
The Pistons held an 8-2 early rebounding edge, then wound up on the short end of a 45-36 count as San Antonio grabbed seven offensive boards in the second quarter alone. That led to a 28-point quarter for the Spurs, wobbling the Pistons, and they followed with a 34-point third quarter in which they shot 67 percent and expanded the lead to 18 five minutes into the quarter.
The Pistons came from 18 down in January to win at San Antonio on Brandon Jennings' buzzer-beating runner followed by the successful construction of Van Gundy's bleepin' wall, but the only bricks in use for the rematch came around the Pistons' basket. San Antonio's stout interior defense led to the Pistons shooting a miserable 43 percent on shots in the paint, 19 of 44. Greg Monroe, brilliant since the waiving of Josh Smith to spearhead a 16-10 record that has moved the Pistons into playoff contention, made 3 of 10 shots, Andre Drummond 4 of 10.
"They're long as heck," Van Gundy said. "They're big and long and they do a great job of challenging stuff around the rim, something that we have to use our size to do a better job of. They made it tough around the basket tonight. I thought we got some good stuff with D.J. (Augustin, 22 points and six assists) and John (Lucas III, nine points and six assists) out of pick-and-roll game, but we didn't get much else going offensively."
"They're a great defensive team and they played great defense tonight," Augustin said. "First half, both teams' defenses were really good. We just couldn't get any points on the offensive end."
All those long defensive possessions in the second quarter, when the Spurs grabbed those seven offensive rebounds to reset the shot clock, took a toll on an already-tired Pistons team. That didn't help their ability to pressure San Antonio's defense, either.
"A lot of second-chance shots," said Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, one of the few Pistons to get on a roll offensively with 20 points. "You're going to score or you're going to get a foul, so that kind of hurt us going into the half. We needed to get the rebound to push on the offensive end to get ourselves going."
"They're a very good team and we sort of let it get away a little bit in the third quarter," Van Gundy said. "I thought our guys fought hard and worked hard defensively, but we did not do a good job on the boards. It's like we didn't finish the possession. We stood and watched, but ... look, I don't give them too many breaks, but I was not disappointed in our effort tonight at all."