DETROIT – Whether Blake Griffin carves out a second career as a standup comic, something he’s dabbled at, he’s already established his bona fides as a standup guy.
“I was unbelievably awful tonight,” he said after the 107-104 loss to Milwaukee. “I thought we had a chance to tie despite everything that I did.”
What he did included a triple-double: 19 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists. Alas, it became a quadruple-double when Griffin committed four turnovers in the final five minutes and 10 for the game.
“We’re not going to win games if I have 10 turnovers and make the poor decisions like I did down the stretch,” he said. “I feel bad for these guys because they played so hard and got us back in this game and I just … I wasn’t there for them tonight.”
The Pistons committed 16 turnovers, on the high side but not necessarily lethal. What killed the Pistons was the disparity in points off of turnovers: 29 for Milwaukee, 11 for Detroit.
And when Milwaukee wasn’t scoring off of turnovers, the Bucks were scoring off of missed Pistons shots at the rim. Those are the two things the fuel transition scoring chances and the Pistons gave them way too many chances via both means. The Pistons shot so poorly around the basket – 18 of 44 or 41 percent, compared to 32 of 52 or 62 percent for the Bucks – that Milwaukee never had to worry much about scoring droughts with so many easy transition opportunities. The Bucks scored 25 or more in all four quarters.
“We shot 40 percent in the paint. You’re not going to win too many games doing that,” Dwane Casey said. “We were 40 percent from three (14 of 35) and 40 percent in the paint. At the rim, we’ve got to finish those because every one of those are important. They collapse the defense to give you even more open shots at the 3-point line.”
Officially, the Bucks held a 17-9 advantage in fast-break points, but that drastically understates the quality of the shots created for Milwaukee early in the shot clock off of missed shots at the rim that inevitably lead to a numbers advantage the other way.
“It’s tough,” Langston Galloway said of the pressure placed on transition defense when layups or their equivalent are missed. “Then you’ve got either Blake or Andre (Drummond) in the backcourt or whoever goes to the basket. It’s normally a four-on-five on three-on-five break.”
Griffin and Drummond finished a combined 8 of 25 shooting and the Bucks capitalized most notably late in the second quarter, outscoring the Pistons 22-10 over the last seven minutes of the half.
“We all remember the last part of the game, but our Achilles heel was in the second quarter,” Casey said. “It got away from us with about three minutes to go.”
The Bucks led by 10 at the break and by 15 with three minutes left in the third quarter when the bench fueled a comeback. A 10-0 run to end the quarter pulled the Pistons within four and they took a 3-point lead on a Stanley Johnson triple with nine minutes to play.
Johnson scored 16 of his 20 points in the fourth quarter, hitting 6 of 7 shots and all four of his 3-point tries. Reggie Bullock led the Pistons with 24 points and hit 5 of 7 triples.
“I hate that that effort was wasted,” Griffin said, circling blame back to himself at every turn.
It was Griffin who took the last two 3-point attempts when the Pistons tried one more comeback after falling behind 107-100 with 1:48 to play. Baskets by Johnson and Bullock and three empty Bucks possessions pulled the Pistons within three points with 14 seconds left. After Griffin missed a quick triple, Jose Calderon chased down the rebound and Griffin had another clean look from 28 feet to tie at the buzzer.
That rounded out a night Griffin would like to forget despite the triple-double. By topping it off with 10 turnovers, he joined elite company. Only 12 such stat lines – a triple-double with double-digit turnovers – have been recorded in NBA history with Russell Westbrook (four times), James Harden (twice), Magic Johnson, LeBron James, Jason Kidd, Clyde Drexler and Charles Barkley the others in the club.
“I thought we did everything we could to get back in the game,” Griffin said, lauding the efforts of Johnson, Jon Leuer and Calderon with the second unit. “We did do everything we could to get back in that game – except for myself.”