TORONTO – When you sign a coach of Dwane Casey’s stature, the expectation is that there will be bigger wins down the road than whatever might happen in mid-November.
But until the Pistons get a chance to start notching big playoff wins under Casey, what happened on this mid-November night north of the border will do quite nicely. On Casey’s first trip back to Toronto since getting fired last spring– and then winning NBA Coach of the Year honors for leading the Raptors to 59 wins and the East’s No. 1 seed – the Pistons chalked up the first signature win of the Casey era.
“He would never say it, but any time you come back to a place you spent so much time at, had so much success – and obviously the fans love him here,” Blake Griffin said after the Pistons rallied from 19 down to win on Reggie Bullock’s 5-footer at the buzzer, 106-104. “I think it meant a lot to him. I was just proud of the way we came back and responded, but this was for him, for sure.”
Bullock’s basket came off a baseline out of bounds play with 1.2 seconds left. The Pistons stacked three players along the edge of the lane to the left and set screens to influence Toronto into expecting a pass for Griffin, who punished them for 30 points and 12 rebounds as the only Pistons scorer that had much going for the first two-plus quarters. When they overplayed to him, Bullock cut through the opening to take Jose Calderon’s pass from the other side of the basket and score the uncontested winner.
“I saw both of them start running toward (Griffin), so I just stepped to the basket and got a great pass from Jose,” said Bullock, who was 1 of 8 at the time. “Tried to get it out of my hands and float it in and it went in. I had enough time to be able to focus and get a good shot off. I had 1.2 seconds left. I was pretty much buck naked up under the basket.”
The Pistons trailed 85-66 with three minutes left in the third quarter when a mostly bench unit that included Ish Smith, Langston Galloway and Jon Leuer outscored Toronto 11-3 to pull them within 11 points entering the fourth quarter.
Nobody played a bigger role in the comeback from that point than Stanley Johnson, whose defense on Kawhi Leonard was central to the Pistons’ rally. Leonard, touching the ball on virtually every possession once he returned with 8:25 left and the Pistons within six points, scored seven points but committed five turnovers with Johnson playing him physically without fouling or overcommitting.
Leonard’s last turnover came with two seconds left after the Pistons missed their chance to win on the previous possession. Leonard crossed half court with six seconds to play and attempted to go wide around Johnson toward the right baseline, but lost control and kicked the ball out of bounds with two seconds left.
“I just tried to play as hard as I can,” said Johnson, who hit two big corner triples amid the fourth-quarter comeback and finished with 12 points. “In my eyes, he’s top two in the NBA, a guy that I watch a lot. I try to actually model my game after him. Just playing basketball. People lose the ball, people get stops.”
Casey kept pushing buttons to find the right combinations, settling on a lineup to close that included Johnson and Galloway, who scored 13, to go with starters Griffin, Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson. And he drew up those two beautiful out of bounds plays in the final timeout in anticipation of needing one in his pocket.
“We knew we had no timeouts,” he said in front of a throng of Toronto media there for his return. “I told Jose, ‘We’re going to trade his butt for an in-bound passer.’ He threw the ball behind Glenn Robinson. We had worked on that play this morning. But we have an action in that situation, short clock, and Reggie Bullock read it and executed it well.”
As Bullock’s shot fell through and the red lights around the backboard came on to signify the game’s end, players celebrated in the corner farthest from the Pistons bench. Casey, honored in a first-quarter tribute video and the recipient of three standing ovations from the sellout of 19,800, beelined it over there to join the fun.
“They were pulling for me,” Casey grinned after the emotional night. “I appreciate that tremendously. It’s about the players; it’s not about coaching. It’s about human beings and those human beings, they felt for me. Blake was the first one. ‘This is a great win for you, Coach.’ And that means something when your star player comes to you and tells you that and other players join in. We have a good unit. Maybe not as talented as some, but we’re going to be one of the scrappiest bunches in the Eastern Conference. I promise you that.”
The Pistons hope to celebrate bigger wins with Casey into the future, after the snow has come and gone, the kind involving champagne. The memory of this one probably will linger until then.