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Washington’s bench, rebounding leads Wizards past road-weary Pistons

If there was ever a night the Pistons needed their bench, this was it. Playing a back to back, losing an hour in the air early Saturday morning flying back from Minneapolis and facing a team that had been off since smoking Milwaukee on Tuesday, Stan Van Gundy needed minutes and production from a second unit that’s become a trouble spot since the loss of scoring anchor Jodie Meeks.

He got neither. And that combination – the bench’s lack of punch and the early schedule inequities – stalled the gathering momentum the Pistons generated in wins over Cleveland and Minnesota coming off last week’s rugged six-game Western road swing.

“We can’t play the starters more minutes than we are. We just can’t,” Van Gundy said after the 97-95 loss to Washington in which Pistons starters built leads of eight points in the first quarter and 11 in the third – after digging out from a 14-point deficit in the second to tie it at halftime.

“As a matter of fact, we need to get those minutes down. But … hoooo,” he exhaled, the sting of a game well within reach roiling his emotions. “If you just look at the plus/minuses, our starters were dominant tonight. And we still couldn’t get a win. That’s frustrating.”

The Pistons were 18 points better than Washington when Reggie Jackson was on the floor. Marcus Morris was plus-15, Ersan Ilyasova plus-13. Washington’s backcourt of John Wall and Bradley Beal, considered by some the best in the East, both were minus-20. But Washington’s bench outscored Detroit’s 51-15 and shot 18 of 29 to 6 of 20 for Van Gundy’s reserves.

Jackson shouldered blame for late-game breakdowns, including the last play when the Pistons had a chance to tie or win after forcing a Washington turnover with nine seconds remaining. He broke off the play Van Gundy called and the best the Pistons got out of it was a contested 3-pointer from Morris – who had a better look at a transition triple with 25 seconds left and the Pistons trailing by three – that didn’t come particularly close.

“Make no excuses. Easy to say we’re tired, but just got to find a way to come out victorious,” said Jackson, who finished with 20 points and nine assists. “I think I had too many costly turnovers in the fourth. Still had a shot with the last play. Kind of broke it off early. Just got to trust that we had enough time to complete the play and just play better.”

Morris finished with 18 points and nine boards, a rebound shy of his second double-double in 24 hours. Ersan Ilyasova had 18 and five boards and they combined to sink 13 of 24 shots and 3 of 8 triples even with Morris’ two late misses. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope added 16 and drained 4 of 7 from the arc.

And the fifth starter, double-double machine Andre Drummond? He had his first single-double of the season, finishing with eight points and 13 rebounds. For the first time in his career when playing at least 25 minutes, though, Drummond failed to grab a single offensive rebound, perhaps the best illustration of fatigue’s effects.

In Drummond’s case, it’s not just the 37 minutes a game he’s playing – seventh in the league, making him the only big man among the top 24 in the NBA – it was also an upper respiratory infection that’s afflicted him since the Pistons returned from their 11-day trip west on Monday morning. Without Drummond’s relentless offensive rebounding, the Pistons lost perhaps their most potent weapon.

“I didn’t think he had much tonight,” Van Gundy said. “That’s one of the few games – well, the first game this year – he just didn’t play very well at either end. Tired. He’s been a little sick. I don’t know the reason. He just didn’t play very well tonight.”

Caldwell-Pope, third in minutes played – Morris, at No. 5, gives the Pistons three of the top seven – like Jackson didn’t want to lean on fatigue as a crutch.

“I’m just going to continue to play hard and give it all I got each minute I get,” he said. But he couldn’t deny fatigue was a factor in the fourth quarter with only one Washington starter – Otto Porter, 31 minutes – over 28 minutes and every Pistons starter with more playing time than Porter and the three leaders with 37-plus.

“Fatigue showed a little bit, but we’ve got to get past that,” he said. “We’ve got to buckle down and fight through it.”

“For us, it can’t be an excuse,” Ilyasova said. “When we step out on the floor, it doesn’t really matter. We have to bring energy and play with focus. We made a lot of mistakes in the beginning of the game” – to be sure, Washington scored 30 of its 50 points in the paint in the first 18 minutes of the game – “and it has nothing to do with fatigue. It’s about be focused.”

Van Gundy, too, said no matter what came before it, no matter the effects of fatigue and the lack of bench productivity, the Pistons had the ball with a chance to win and failed to execute.

“They were tired – no question about it,” he said. “But we had a three to tie with Marcus (on the possession with 25 seconds left) and then we don’t execute the last play. There’s no excuse for that. I don’t care if you’re tired. You can run the play. And we didn’t have the discipline to stick with it.”