FAST BREAKDOWN
Three quick observations from Saturday night’s 103-101 loss to the Sacramento Kings at Little Caesars Arena
BOOMER SOONER – Blake Griffin won the battle, but Buddy Hield won the Oklahoma Civil War. The two ex-Sooners carried their offenses, but Hield sparked a fourth-quarter rally that saw Sacramento come back from 12 down. The Pistons led 93-81 with 6:21 to play but the Kings used an 11-0 run to pull within a point. They took a lead on Hield’s 3-pointer with 1:11 to go but Griffin’s layup with 56 seconds left put the Pistons back ahead. The Pistons survived two missed Kings shots on the next possession and got the ball back with about 30 seconds left. Reggie Jackson missed a mid-range jump shot as the shot clock expired and the Kings gathered the rebound and called timeout with 3.4 seconds left. Hield initially fumbled the inbounds pass to him, but recovered on the right wing with his back to the basket, whirled to his right and split Zaza Pachulia and Reggie Jackson with Reggie Bullock having taken himself out of the play and threw up a one-footed shot to win it at the buzzer. Hield scored 15 of his 35 points in the fourth quarter. Griffin finished with 38 points for the Pistons, but the only other player in double figures for them was Luke Kennard with 19.
THOMAS TIME – One rotation alteration that had nothing to do with the injury absences of Andre Drummond and Ish Smith involved rookie Khyri Thomas playing over Langston Galloway. Thomas got cameos and performed well in games against the Clippers and Jazz on the road and played well, but hurt his back when he took a hard mid-air hit in the closing seconds at Utah. He was inactive for Wednesday’s win over Orlando and didn’t play in Friday’s win over Miami. But with Galloway slumping, Thomas got the call. He played 14 minutes and scored four points with three rebounds. Galloway had been 5 of 22 from the 3-point arc over the last five games to see his percentage slump to .337 for the season; 65 percent of his shot attempts have been triples.
TIMING IS EVERYTHING – Sacramento is living right. For the second time in the past nine days, the Pistons and Kings met with Sacramento getting the benefit of multiple advantages each time. When they played in Sacramento on Jan. 10, the Pistons had played the previous night in Los Angeles and they lined up without Blake Griffin, who for the second time this season was held out for rest. This time around, the Pistons again were playing the second night of a back to back while the Kings, again, had been off the previous night. And, again, the Pistons were missing an All-Star in Andre Drummond. With Saturday’s loss, the Pistons are now 2-4 this season in games on the second night of a back to back. The Pistons play 13 back to backs this season, their fewest in years as the NBA has reduced preseason and spread regular-season games out in an effort to cut down on back to backs and incidents of four games in five nights. But the Pistons play 11 games this season where they played the night before against an opponent that didn’t play and only eight games where they’re rested against a team that played the previous night.