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Up 2-0, Pistons see room to improve across the board

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by Keith Langlois
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – The parking lot outside the Pistons’ practice facility was only sparsely occupied, most of their key players headed home to pack for their late-afternoon flight to Cleveland. At one end of the court, Dale Davis and Ronald Dupree were engaged with assistant coaches Ron Harper and Terry Porter in a shooting competition. At the other, Amir Johnson and Will Blalock worked with two other staff members on post moves and mid-range jump shots.

One player didn’t fit among the group just trying to stay in shape and work on their skills.

Tayshaun Prince jacked up shots for a good hour after Saturday’s practice ended, outlasting them all. First he worked with Johnson and Blalock’s group, and when they left he stayed behind, extending his range out to the 3-point line.

“Get some shots up,” he said when he finally quit and the gym was virtually abandoned. “That’s the whole thing. What else is there to do?”

When you’re in a 1 of 19 shooting slump, what else, indeed?

That the Pistons have won the first two games of the Eastern Conference finals with Prince going 1 of 19 is a testament to their defensive prowess and to their scoring balance and depth. But the Pistons don’t want to push it. They know the Cavs are close to being even or ahead in the series and could just as easily win two close home games if the Pistons don’t pick it up on their offensive end.

Here’s the to-do checklist for the Pistons as the series switches to Quicken Loans Arena. They don’t have to get them all addressed, but the more they do, the easier the wins will come:

  • Get Prince going – They don’t need him to score 20 a game, they don’t need him to match LeBron James point for point, they don’t even need him to hit the 17 a game he was averaging through his first 10 postseason games this year. But half of that would be nice. Something to keep Cleveland honest. Something to make the Cavs pay for switching guards like Larry Hughes or Daniel Gibson on to him.

    A layup, a garbage rebound that falls to him, an easy basket in transition – anything to get him kick started early in Game 3 would ease him into a comfort zone and make them all feel a little better.

    “He’s missed some easy shots,” Flip Saunders said. “Sometimes when you’re on a great offensive rhythm everything happens right and the basket seems like it’s 10 feet wide. Right now he’s just struggling. The biggest thing is as long as he takes good shots he’ll be OK.”

    Cleveland’s defensive game plan to swarm Chauncey Billups has, in many instances, ground Detroit’s offense to a halt and put the ball in Prince’s hands under difficult circumstances.

    “I do think as a team we’ve held the ball a little bit more,” Saunders said. “Cleveland’s done some things defensively to put us in those situations. When we’re not moving, Tay’s not as effective. He has passed the ball pretty well. He has been involved offensively as far as making plays for other people. We need him to get going a little bit, too.”

    “I wasn’t myself the last two games,” Prince said. “One thing important about this team is that when you don’t make shots, there’s other things you have to do and that’s what I’ve been trying to do to pick it up in other areas.”

    Saunders said the Pistons won’t run anything special to try to get Prince going.

    “That’s not the mentality of our team,” he said. “We’ve got five players. Tay has had 19 pretty good shots. Of those shots, three of them may have been bad shots – low shot clock. He’ll make shots when it comes down to it.”

  • Free Chauncey – For most of their four regular-season games against Cleveland, the Pistons’ offense functioned smoothly. That happened for almost none of their first two playoff games.

    It starts with Billups, of course, because the ball is almost always in his hands. But it really relies on his teammates to make the plays that will dissuade the Cavs from applying so much pressure to Billups.

    “It’s not really me,” he said Saturday. “They made up their mind – ‘We’re not going to let him beat us’ – which is understandable. Once I get some slips and Tay’s knocking down some shots and opening it up, they’ll have to direct their focus somewhere else and that will loosen it up.”

    Billups’ assist-to-turnover ratio during the regular season was nearly 4:1, but through two games against the Cavs he has 11 assists and 12 turnovers. He’s shooting 8 of 13, 4 of 6 from the 3-point arc, but he’s not getting many opportunities.

    “When he’s got shots, he’s making shots,” Saunders said. “If you want to take him out of the offense, then you’re going to open things up for other players. A guy like (Jason) Maxiell, who is averaging four points a game, gets 15. Those guys have to make plays in order for the other team to loosen up their defense a little bit.”

  • More from Maxiell – Not more as in more than the 15 points and six rebounds he gave them in an eye-opening Game 2 performance, just more of the impact he’s made on both games of the series.

    Cleveland’s Anderson Varejao has hurt the Pistons, averaging 13.5 points and 11 rebounds in 29 minutes off the bench – but while those numbers might be higher than the Pistons hoped or reasonably anticipated, they knew Varejao would be a handful. The impact of Maxiell – who affects a game in the same ways Varejao does and, in fact, has been used to counter Cleveland’s Brazilian dynamo – is a much bigger surprise to the Cavs.

    In fact, it’s not a stretch to say that as close as the first two games have been – both coming down to the game’s final possession – the Pistons would be down 2-0 if not for Maxiell’s contributions.

    “A young guy like that, you’re not judged by what you do one game but what you do the next game,” said Saunders, who is always cautious in his praise of young players. “After you play a good game, you know they’re definitely going to be more aware of what he’s going to do. It’s kind of an interesting matchup when he’s in with Varejao.

    “He came in a year ago understanding where this team was from an established, veteran type team. He’s worked hard in practice every day. I’ll see him on the road going up in the elevators and I’ll say, ‘Maxy, be ready,’ and he’ll say, ‘Coach, you know I’ll always be ready.’ He says the right things, too.”

    “It’s all about energy,” Maxiell said. “Flip calls on me, he expects me to produce energy and that’s what I do.”

  • Damage control – LeBron James is averaging 14.5 points and shooting 35 percent. The Pistons expect those numbers to rise, but they want to make scoring points – however many James ends up with – a painful exercise for Cleveland’s superstar.

    Just because the Pistons have had success against him in the first two games, Saunders won’t stick with the status quo but anticipate Cleveland’s adjustments and come up with new wrinkles to throw at him.

    “Great players, you can’t go in and think they’re going to play the same each game as the game before,” he said. “They’re going to make adjustments. We constantly look to make adjustments every time we go out to play him.”

  • Grass fires – Cleveland’s Mike Brown changed his rotation from games 1 to 2, using more of backup guards Damon Jones and Daniel Gibson and less of Eric Snow, to good effect.

    The Pistons will continue to focus their defense on James and dare Cleveland’s role players to beat them, but there’s an NBA axiom that role players and the bench play better at home than on the road. Saunders doesn’t necessarily buy it.

    “It just depends on the player,” he said. “Some players play good on the road, some players play bad. I don’t think you can just stereotype. Sometimes they play better on the road because there are no expectations. At home, if you play bad, especially if you’re a bench player, the crowd will start mumbling and you’ll lose a little bit of confidence. I think it just depends on the temperament of the player.”