INDIANAPOLIS – There were already ominous signs for the Pistons by the mid-point of the second quarter when Domantas Sabonis grabbed a defensive rebound, dribbled 94 feet and dunked without a Pistons defender in the same area code.
Before the ball met the floor, Dwane Casey stormed off the Pistons bench, angrily waved his hands in disgust and called his third timeout of the night. The Pistons trailed 44-30 at the time.
It would get worse.
“I want to first apologize to the fans of the Detroit Pistons,” Casey said after the 125-87 thrashing at the hands of the NBA’s hottest team, the Indiana Pacers. “We’ve got to have more pride than we played with tonight, more togetherness. Indiana outworked us in every facet of the game.”
Casey talked at length – at Friday’s morning shootaround and again before tipoff at Bankers Life Fieldhouse – about two things: cutting down on turnovers, a sudden and enormous problem for the Pistons, and getting better starts to first and third quarters.
Given that emphasis, it’s telling that the Pistons endured horrendous starts to each half – and that turnovers were at the root of it in each instance. There’s an axiom in the coaching profession that you get what you emphasize. Casey emphasized turnovers and strong starts and got neither, which screams at a lack of focus.
The Pistons turned the ball over on three of the game’s first four possessions and trailed 8-0 when Casey called his first timeout barely two minutes into the game. They somehow trailed by just 11 points early in the third quarter when four straight turnovers allowed Indiana to take an 18-point lead. It was effectively over at that point as the Pistons dropped below .500 at 16-17.
Casey’s postgame press conference, which usually starts no more than 15 minutes after games, this time was delayed by nearly double that. A team meeting was held in the locker room that Blake Griffin and others described as positive.
“I thought it was all positive in the sense that we’re all on the same page,” Griffin said. “The biggest thing that I would say as players, we are taking the onus. Coaches are giving us great defensive game plans, we walk through and we’re prepared for every single game and then we just come out and either don’t play hard or play hard one game and the next game we won’t. It’s just about consistency and that’s the gist of everything. That’s why I say it was positive. It’s not like a bunch of finger pointing. I’ve been in some bad team meetings and this was a good one.”
Griffin’s stall in the visitor’s locker room was next to Jose Calderon’s with Zaza Pachulia to Calderon’s other side. The most experienced Pistons’ voices resonated most loudly in the meeting.
“Zaza has said it best,” Griffin said. “After a game like this, you should be (ticked) off. You can’t just, ‘All right. Let’s move on.’ Be (ticked) off for a night, but tomorrow you watch it on film and go out and work on the things you’re supposed to and it’s out of your mind. But at the same time, you have to keep it in mind those changes we need to make.”
“Yes, everybody’s on the same page,” Calderon said. “Yes, everybody says what we have to do. But it’s more about doing it than talking. We beat some good teams because of the way we play basketball. When we play that way – playing together, helping each other on defense, offensively – that’s when we are a good team. We’ve got to try to do that for 48 minutes. We don’t have the luxury to play only 14 or 20 or 30 or 40. We’ve got to play hard. That’s when we compete. But don’t just do it in Orlando and have a meeting two days later. We have to be more consistent. That could be the key.”
The Pistons wound up committing 22 turnovers a game after committing 24, the most in five years. Indiana finished with astonishing edges in points off turnovers (30-10) and points in the paint (68-40) and won going away despite shooting only 5 of 19 from the 3-point arc.
With the Pistons trailing by 24 points with 9:31 to play, Casey sent Griffin back into the game and kept four starters – all but rookie Bruce Brown – on the floor until 4:24 remained when he cleared the bench with the Pistons trailing by 31.
“We had 22 turnovers – I see all that,” Casey said. “You can look at all the numbers you want to, but until you put the intensity, focus and grit out on the floor you can make these numbers say whatever you want to say. It starts with the grit and grind mentality above all the numbers. And pride. That’s what it comes down to and that’s what tonight was about.”