DETROIT – Zaza Pachulia has spent the past few seasons as teammates with Kevin Durant and Steph Curry and winning NBA championships. Blake Griffin’s 50-point game to beat Philadelphia proves Pachulia still has the capacity to be amazed.
“Absolutely,” Pachulia, in his 17th season, exhaled after the 133-132 overtime win to keep the Pistons perfect at 3-0. “Probably the best game of his career. I saw he grabbed the basketball, so that’s why I say this one, best game of his career.”
Reggie Jackson, as a point guard accustomed to bearing the burden of running the pick and roll time after time with a game hanging in the balance, considered the stunning statistic that Griffin – despite playing with the ball in his hands on virtually every play – has been charged with only two turnovers in 113 minutes this season.
“I didn’t know he only had two turnovers,” Jackson said, eyebrows raised. “He definitely handles the ball a lot for us, directs a lot of our offense. We play through him and to only have two turnovers and be playing the way he is, that’s outstanding.”
Dwane Casey has been around a Hall of Famer or two in his 20-plus years in the NBA, including Kevin Garnett, Gary Payton and Dirk Nowitzki. He knows what authentic greatness looks like.
“He’s playing great,” Casey said after Griffin’s third straight All-Star performance. “Of all the great players I’ve worked with, he’s playing at that high level right now. He’s one of those guys taking it to another level, leading this team, putting them on his back, being a leader in timeouts. That’s what we expect from Blake because he is that good of a player.”
Except the past four seasons of missing big chunks of games with various injuries had dulled his superstar sheen. Was he still that player? That was an important consideration for the Pistons, who bet a big chunk of their immediate future on Griffin by sending Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley and their 2018 No. 1 pick to the Clippers last season to take on the remaining four-plus years of Griffin’s $173 million contract.
ESPN, for one, didn’t appear to think Griffin still warranted that level of esteem. When it released its top 100 player rankings before the season, Griffin was listed 33rd – wedged between John Wall and Al Horford and behind such players as Jrue Holiday, Devin Booker and second-year players Jayson Tatum and Donovan Mitchell.
Griffin’s three-game production is destroying the validity of that ranking and lending credence to his contention that a fully healthy off-season to get his body right and hone his skills was critical to regaining his place in the NBA firmament.
“The past two, three years, all I hear is how bad I am,” Griffin said after Tuesday’s epic performance. “And, you know, I’ve been hurt, had bad games. I haven’t even played the way I have. But we’ve talked about it: This summer, being able to work out for the first time in three summers, is huge. Last three summers, I was fighting and working as hard as I could to get healthy to be able to play. This summer, I was able to really put time in and work on my game, on my body. I’ve always been a big believer in hard work pays off.”
Casey pitched a tent this summer in Los Angeles, where Griffin and several Pistons teammates make their off-season base, and was more than impressed with the structure and intensity of Griffin’s off-season. He called it “surgical,” the extents to which Griffin went, including hiring a full team of players in addition to a personal trainer so he could put himself in simulated game situations.
“He had probably the most impressive, organized workout regimen this summer that I’ve seen of any veteran player like him,” Casey said. “He hired statisticians to come in and keep stats of his shooting, his stretching regimen. He brought in other workout players. He had the whole gamut covered.”
Griffin began asserting his leadership over the off-season, as well, and that process has accelerated since training camp. Casey talked throughout preseason about the tone he set in practices. You can see him during games directing traffic and mixing coaching with cheerleading at critical moments.
“Guy had an MVP effort,” Jackson said. “He puts the team on his back. He did some heavy lifting. It was outstanding to see him play well. He’s been playing well since the season started. He’s been a great leader. I don’t think I can talk too much more highly about him. He’s just been great – outstanding.”
“He feels great,” Pachulia said. “His body feels great. He’s in great shape and he’s smart. I’m amazed. I’m glad we’re teammates. Great guy, on and off the court. He’s had a great start.”
Griffin’s 50-point outing was a career high, but he’s had a long history of dazzling individual performances and isn’t particularly interested in looking back. Not when he feels better than he has in more than three years. He’s looking forward – but not very far.
“Things are really going our way right now, but the thing for us as a team is you don’t get too high with the highs. This is a win, but we’ve got to come win Thursday. We’ve got to prepare tomorrow. At this point in my career, yeah, I’m very comfortable. But I also know that this season is such a roller coaster that the quickest way to come out and get beat is to go into the next game thinking about this game. So this game is out of our mind after we watch film tomorrow.”
It probably won’t be so soon out of the minds of Pistons fans who watched one of the best individual performances in many years – or ever. It probably won’t be so easy to forget for those charged with ranking NBA players, either.