WASHINGTON – Turnovers and bench imbalance buried the Pistons at Washington and both of them spring from the same source: the injured list.
The Pistons expected to have a killer bench unit this year and they probably will, but for now two of its main actors are miscast as starters and a third is injured. The ripple effect of that is being felt by Dwane Casey’s replacement bench unit, which was outscored 53-31 in Monday’s 115-99 loss to the Wizards.
The Pistons turned it over 21 times, leading to a 93-82 edge for Washington in shot attempts. Ten of those turnovers came in the decisive third quarter, when the Wizards – who saw a 17-point first-half lead cut to two in the final six minutes – outscored the Pistons 30-17.
“Most of that’s on me,” Luke Kennard said after contributing five to the turnover total, three amid the third-quarter avalanche. “I felt like I was handling the ball a lot, felt like I was turning it over a lot, not making the right reads, not making the right plays, getting frustrated a little bit. I let that affect me and I can’t do that.”
He’s right that he was handling the ball a lot – or a lot more than Casey envisioned he’d be. Without Blake Griffin and all three point guards on the depth chart – Reggie Jackson, Derrick Rose and Tim Frazier – the Pistons have to replace approximately 100 percent of their ballhandling and offensive initiation.
Until reinforcements arrive, they’ll have to cobble it together with Bruce Brown as the fill-in starter and then anything goes after that. Svi Mykhailiuk was the primary playmaker in the 11-plus minutes Brown sat but it’s a shared responsibility with Kennard getting put in pick-and-roll situations and a heavy dose of Andre Drummond dribble handoffs.
“It’s tough, but we could figure it out,” said Christian Wood, who scored 13 first-half points but was limited to six second-half minutes when Washington went small for most of the half. “Dre does a good job of bringing the ball down the floor, getting the offense set and having guards play off of him, which is great. But it’s tough. We need those guys back, but we’ve got to play without them.”
Brown wasn’t as sharp as he was in his debut as the starting point guard in Saturday’s win over Brooklyn, when he finished with 22 points, seven assists and zero turnovers, but a strong finish gave him decent numbers: 14 points, seven assists, seven rebounds, three blocked shots and two steals. He also had four turnovers, as did Drummond.
Brown matched Kennard’s three third-quarter turnovers as the Pistons managed to get up only 17 shots and make six in the quarter. It’s during stretches like that when the Pistons especially miss the security blanket of Griffin, running offense through their dynamic All-Star who can score in the post or at the 3-point line while also acting as the fulcrum of the offense and as distributor.
Or giving Jackson a healthy diet of pick and rolls to exploit matchups – or allowing Rose a crack at blowing through a defense to cause chaos and free 3-point shooters.
Instead, it’s a second-year, second-round draft pick who played on the wing in college, Brown, shouldering the lion’s share of minutes at point guard while also drawing daunting defensive assignments – the reason he forced his way into the rotation as a rookie. Or it’s Drummond doing unconventional things and then improvising with Kennard, Mykhailiuk and Langston Galloway.
“I think we’re learning from all of this,” Kennard said. “It’s definitely a learning experience for me, having the ball a lot more. We’ve got to keep working at it. It’s not easy. It’s not easy and we’re kind of figuring that out right now. It’s still not acceptable to be turning the ball over a lot and that’s on me. I’ve definitely just got to be better about that.”
Getting Griffin back will allow Casey to put Markieff Morris back with the second unit, but whether Casey feels he can also move Kennard to the bench when Griffin returns is in doubt now without Jackson’s playmaking and 3-point threat to spread the floor. In any case, Casey will abide by the coach’s playbook for maintaining a stiff upper lip. He’s not about to concede anything even with the Pistons playing without their superstar and their entire complement of point guards.
“It is what it is,” he said. “It’s the NBA. There’s no excuses. We have enough guys in that room to compete, to fight. It’s not about winning; it’s about playing the game the right way, fighting the right way, playing together the right way. When you’re a desperate team, good things will happen.”
If you can count the Pistons as desperate for the return of their primary playmakers, then they’d lead the league in desperation. The anticipation is that Griffin and Rose, at least, will return sooner than later and Casey – as tenacious as any of his 29 peers patrolling NBA sidelines – will drive them to play the right way and compete to their fullest every night until they do.
“Successful teams play through frustration, adversity,” he said. “We fought our way back in the second quarter, made it a ballgame. But then you’ve got to crank it back up again in the third quarter and fight through frustration again. We have guys maybe a step above what they should be doing, asking guys to do a little bit more, but that’s the NBA. We’ve got to make sure we bring the right disposition, the right fight, the right togetherness to win in this league.”