CHICAGO – How much room do the Pistons have for improvement? Stand Andre Drummond up and have him stretch his arms out as far as he can. That much room.
But after two games, their record could not possibly be better.
“We got a win. That’s the beautiful thing about it,” Dwane Casey said after Ish Smith’s driving layup with 5.4 seconds left put the Pistons ahead by two points and Blake Griffin’s defensive stand against Zach LaVine after that won it, 118-116, in Chicago’s home opener. “A win’s a win on the road.”
Casey has been banging the drum about handling adversity since he gathered the Pistons in Ann Arbor last month for training camp with an emphasis on winning tough road games. So never mind that the Bulls are an expected lottery team and that they were playing without Lauri Markkanen, Kris Dunn and Denzel Valentine.
The Pistons had to deal with Andre Drummond’s game-long foul trouble – that’s twice in two games for Drummond, something that he normally avoids – and he was gone by the time Smith and Griffin made big plays at each end to win it.
The Bulls outscored the Pistons 10-3 after falling behind 113-106 on Smith’s triple with 1:47 left and that had Casey and Griffin shaking their heads.
“I told the guys before the first game, in order to get to the playoffs we have to win these types of games,” said Griffin, whose 33 points matched LaVine’s. “Those types of mistakes are going to come back to bite us. We don’t want to be sitting at home after 82 games being like, man, if we had just beat so-and-so on the road that one time.”
Griffin got switched on to LaVine, whose triple with 25 seconds left tied the game, and either knocked the ball loose or was close enough to induce LaVine to lose his grip on the ball on the final Chicago possession. Did Griffin bat it?
“I don’t know,” he grinned. “I’m going to say yeah, for now. Why not? I popped it up. I don’t know. At the end of the game, all that matters is the stop. And Ish did a great job of coming over and making a smart play.”
With the ball loose after it escaped LaVine’s grip, Smith jumped up and batted it into the backcourt to let the clock run out.
Griffin finished with 12 rebounds, five assists and no turnovers in more than 34 minutes and the Pistons, 17 points better than the Bulls while Griffin was on the floor, struggled without him – compounded by Drummond being limited to less than 24 minutes with foul trouble.
“You always (struggle) when your star player is off the floor,” Casey said. “You’ve got to make sure you continue to play and not let the needle drop. You’ve got to increase the lead or at least keep it even and we didn’t do that.”
Reggie Bullock and Stanley Johnson, who missed the opening-night win over Brooklyn, were back in the starting lineup to give Casey his preferred starting group. Neither was razor sharp, though Bullock scored 16 points despite hitting just 1 of 4 from the 3-point line and Johnson scored seven of his 10 points in the fourth quarter after shooting 1 of 8 before that. Defense, Casey said, kept Johnson on the floor for30 minutes.
“He wasn’t shooting the ball well, but we needed somebody out there to show some semblance of defense – and he did,” Casey said.”
Reggie Jackson scored 18 points to go with six assists and hit 4 of 7 from the 3-point arc, playing off of the ball much of the night. Smith played the game’s final 17:38 and finished with 15 points and five assists. He hit 3 of 5 triples on a night the Pistons were 18 of 40.
“Ish is unbelievable,” Griffin said. “He just changes the pace of the game. Whether he’s making shots or not, he changes the pace of the game. He puts the defense on their heels. Defensively, he’s a pest. He just does so many things that are huge for our team. I think the team recognizes that, but I hope everybody else does, too.”
And the Pistons needed all that Smith gave them, and all they got from Jackson and Johnson and Bullock and everyone else. But the game was won on Griffin’s broad shoulders, plain and simple.
“He’s an All-Star. He’s a superstar in my eyes,” Smith said. “Any time we needed a big shot, I became a fan out there. I just started throwing him the ball and was just kind of watching. He was special for us down the stretch. We need that from him every night. He’s going to give us that every night. I’m just happy he’s on our team.”
So with Griffin doing Griffin things, the Pistons – though playing imperfectly – remained perfect under Dwane Casey. Any win on the road, they’d tell you, is a good win.