Just as surely as Stan Van Gundy will build his offense around Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson’s pick-and-roll sledgehammer, the Pistons’ future on defense will be forged by Drummond’s rim protection in concert with the suffocating pressure coming from two spry young athletes on his wings: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Stanley Johnson.
Caldwell-Pope is already playing at an elite level defensively. It always takes perception a while to catch up to reality – both when a player is on the way up and the way down – and, in fairness, Caldwell-Pope has to show he can maintain his dogged pace over 82 games.
But as he showed in back-to-back games at Portland and Golden State earlier this week, when he hounded first Damian Lillard and then Steph Curry, he’s got the size, quickness, strength and competitive fire to make easy baskets rare artifacts for opposing scorers.
“He was good last year,” Van Gundy said after those outings, “but so far this year, he’s been really, really good.”
Johnson is more of an uncut diamond on the defensive end at this point, but Van Gundy can see in him the same physical attributes combined with the necessary competitive edge common to all great defenders.
“He’ll be a little bit different. He’ll be even more physical, but he can become a very good defender, too,” he said. “Where he’s lacking right now is he doesn’t know everything that’s coming and he gets lost on some plays – to be expected at 19.”
The epitome of an elite wing defensive duo in recent vintage would be LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in Miami. Maybe the best of all time was Chicago’s Michael Jordan-Scottie Pippen combination. The Pistons had their own Hall of Fame wing defensive duo in Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman. In today’s NBA, San Antonio’s Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green might be the gold standard.
If Caldwell-Pope and Johnson can put themselves in the conversation for the best 1-2 wing defensive combo in the 2017-18 NBA – when Drummond will be 24, and that much more instinctive as a shot-blocker and intimidator – the backbone of an elite defense will be in place.
Their versatility has been on display already on this six-game road trip. In the win at Phoenix to start it, Johnson found himself guarding Brandon Knight and Eric Bledsoe at various times and more than held his own. Van Gundy’s call to assign Caldwell-Pope to two explosive point guards, Lillard and Curry, reflects his confidence in the third-year player’s ability. Curry was held 50 percent below his scoring average and shot 7 of 18. Lillard was limited to 15 shots and forced into five turnovers.
“What he’s done is what you can do with guys like that,” Van Gundy said. “You make it hard on them. You don’t give them anything easy. You make them work for what they get. You’re not going to stop those guys. Those are two very high-level guards. But you can make it tougher on them. You can bring their percentage down. Maybe they make some mistakes. I think he did a good job in both of those games.”
Van Gundy quickly predicted Caldwell-Pope, 22, would be his best perimeter defender before the 2014-15 season started – and he was. But he’s taken another big step forward this season.
“He’s continued to get stronger and I think what also happens is guys learn the game,” Van Gundy said. “They can anticipate situations a lot better. They know what’s coming. They’ve seen more things. They’re not caught by surprise. We notice it even when we go through walk-throughs. He knows what’s coming before we finish talking about the play. He’s seen enough now.”
And Johnson has not. In addition to learning schemes and developing the ability to absorb scouting reports that come at you four or five times a week – even within the framework of a team’s defensive principles, game plans are tweaked for every opponent based on their sets and personnel – there’s also the art of learning strengths and tendencies of individual players.
“He’s good on the ball right now. He gets down in his stance and moves his feet well. He’s a competitive guy,” Van Gundy said. “Off the ball, he tends to really get lost right now. He gets beat on cuts, he gets beat to the boards, he loses his man, he loses vision. Again, that’s all a learning thing. He’s got a long way to go there, but on the ball he’s got the ability and he’s got the will to stop people.”
Sounds vaguely familiar to the way Van Gundy talked about Caldwell-Pope going into his second season.
“Two more years down the road for (Johnson), yes, he could be at that same point and we could have a pair of outstanding wing defenders.”