Stan Van Gundy has never had a team go through a full NBA season without laying an egg in the effort department.
“Not even close,” he admits.
But that doesn’t mean he accepts the inevitability of the occasional stinker.
“No. I will never accept that. I think you have to accept the inevitability there will be some nights where you don’t play great. I think you have to accept the inevitability of nights you don’t shoot great. I never accept the inevitability of not bringing a proper effort. No. I don’t think there’s any excuse for that.”
The Pistons had their first such night of the season Monday in Milwaukee. It came on their third game in four nights, a stretch that came on the heels of an 11-day, five-city, six-game trip that resulted in the practically inevitable array of illness and malady that afflicted the traveling party.
They swapped baskets for a quarter with the Bucks – actually leading 26-25 when it ended – but Van Gundy never saw deeds that matched the exhortations of his players to pick up the intensity level.
“We had a lot of guys trying to talk to each other last night. We just didn’t have very many guys actually doing anything themselves on the floor,” he said.
The best way to raise the collective energy level is for one among them to pick up a few floor burns and will teammates to match the effort. That usually comes from a veteran leader or a star. Van Gundy saw it in their youngest member only, Stanley Johnson.
“I thought that Stanley played real hard,” Van Gundy said. “I thought Aron (Baynes), for the most part, played hard, but he had some times he didn’t run back on defense. (Pause.) Boy, am I out of my list? (Longer pause.) Yeah, I think I’m done.”
He circled back to give Anthony Tolliver a passing grade, too. All in all, a night to forget. But not before watching videotape to sear the sting, the disappointment, into the memory banks.
“We watched our defense,” Van Gundy said, and you can throw some air quotes around that last word. “That was the gist. And there were a lot of instances of it.”
Van Gundy’s father spent his career mostly at the college level. That’s where his roots are, too, coming to the NBA 21 years ago after climbing the coaching ladder from Division II and III schools to the Big Ten for more than a decade. He knows playing 82 games, often four in a week, is a lot different than 28 or 30 with maybe one or two most weeks.
“It has to be a habit thing,” he said. “If you’re relying on your emotion to play hard every night – like, ‘I’m really up for this game’ – then you’re going to have problems in an 82-game season. I don’t know how often you can really get yourself up. What you have to do is be a professional and develop your habits so that the way you play all the time is what comes out. I was really disappointed and I think they were, too.”
The Pistons have had about as unfavorable a schedule as they could have for the first month of the season, including four back-to- back sets among their first 13 games – with all four back ends coming against teams that had been off the previous night.
But there aren’t any soft spots coming any time soon. They practiced Tuesday for the arrival of Miami – second to Cleveland in the East with a 9-4 record – and then they’ll leave town for the third time in a week on Thanksgiving for a Friday date with Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Oklahoma City.
“Each guy has to deal with that on his own and get himself ready to play with great energy,” Van Gundy said. “As we told ’em last night, it’s not getting easier. We’re playing the Heat and Oklahoma City – both really good teams. It’s going to get harder. Not easier.”