If the Atlanta Hawks don’t shoot it like a team full of Steph Currys, maybe today the story is Killian Hayes for the first time looking like he knows he can play point guard in the NBA … or Josh Jackson’s amazing career renaissance continuing in the uniform of his hometown team … or Jerami Grant’s emergence as a prime-time player paying off on the bet the Pistons made on him or …
We could go on. It was a fun night, despite a 128-120 loss and despite the Pistons going at it without their two all-world stars, Blake Griffin and Derrick Rose – a night where you didn’t have to squint very hard to see what the future might have in store.
Troy Weaver wanted to put a team of long, rangy street fighters on the floor and the Pistons put that into evidence, too, when they saw a six-point game late in the third quarter balloon to a 24-point deficit with 7:24 left – and then kept coming and coming and coming at the unbeaten Hawks until they were suddenly trailing by just five points with 1:05 to play.
“I love the compete level,” Dwane Casey said after the 128-120 loss in which Atlanta drilled 20 of 42 from the 3-point arc to save them. “I told ’em after the game, if we compete at that level each and every night, we’re going to win some basketball games. Really proud of the way we competed. But we’re not just taking a look at guys – we’re putting them out there to compete to win.”
With no Griffin, Casey moved rookie Saddiq Bey into the starting lineup and went with Josh Jackson instead of Delon Wright next to Hayes so Wright could essentially assume Rose’s role as quarterback of the bench unit.
All of those players rewarded Casey with strong outings. Jackson and Grant – who moved to Griffin’s power forward spot with Bey sliding in at small forward – each scored 27 points.
“I thought we played pretty well,” Jackson said. “We came in a little bit undermanned, but the next guy’s just got to step up. I felt all our guys came in with the right mindset today, cut down on our turnovers. That’s really what we tried to do – tried to find a few areas we could get better at and focus on today. I’m really proud of everybody.”
Wright contributed 18 points, five rebounds and four assists in 22 high-quality minutes. And Hayes found a new comfort level, the 19-year-old getting his first crunch-time minutes and recording career bests in scoring (10) and assists (eight) while turning it over just twice – once with less than 10 seconds to play – and making up for it with two steals of his own.
“He’s settling down,” Casey said. “It’s going to be an ongoing thing with him, getting more comfortable with the NBA, understanding what he can get away with. I thought he did as good a job as you can possibly do with Trae Young.”
With Jahlil Okafor also missing the game, the third rookie first-round pick, Isaiah Stewart, made his NBA debut and made sparks fly with his sheer hustle and willingness to throw his body around. Stewart grabbed eight rebounds – five of them on the offensive end – in just 15 minutes.
“We’re all coming in, just trying to find our role and how we can help the team,” Bey said of the rookies after he scored 10 points and grabbed seven rebounds while not committing a single turnover in 30 minutes. “They came in playing hard, playing tough and you’ve got to do it every play. We’re going to get better. We’re going to continue to work every day.”
Casey said before the game he just wanted Stewart to come in and “play his butt off and be who he is.” That’s what he got from the 19-year-old.
“He played well. He rebounded well. He created space in the paint. The young man plays so hard he wears himself out – that’s why we brought him here. I love the way he competed.”
Mason Plumlee, who said earlier this month that Stewart had the best attitude of any young player he’s been around since coming to the NBA, continued to be everything the Pistons hoped when they signed him to be their starting center, too, hitting all four of his shots in a nine-point, 12-rebound, six-assist, three-steal performance.
The Pistons fell to 0-3 for the first time since 2014-15, but despite the tumult of their off-season – capped by the addition of 11 new players thrown together just three weeks ago – and their reliance on youth, including a 19-year-old starting point guard, they’ve been competitive in all three games and, to be sure, feel like they could have won all of them.
“We’re definitely not happy with how our three games have gone,” Jackson said. “We felt like we could’ve beaten every team we’ve played. We’re right there. But we’re learning. We’re still getting to know each other. As far as having our heads hanging low, I haven’t seen that from anybody. We know we’ve lost three tough games, but the fight is there. Everybody’s still coming to work every day, ready to fight.”