DETROIT – It wasn’t perfect, but it was a lot closer to the offense that ranked No. 1 in the NBA over a 15-game span than the one coming off of its two most impotent games of the season.
“How many points did we have, 111? That’s probably not the same pace we’ve been having,” Reggie Jackson said after the Pistons knocked off Lakers Lite – no LeBron James, Lonzo Ball or Brandon Ingram. “I was just proud of the way guys went back to being aggressive. You can live with aggressive mistakes and that was the best thing about tonight.”
That Jackson played might have been the best thing about the night, given that he left American Airlines Arena in a walking boot less than 48 hours earlier when he twisted the same right ankle that suffered torn ligaments in December 2017. His shot didn’t fall in the first half, but Jackson scored 10 points in the third quarter when the Pistons went on a 13-0 run to put some distance between them and the Lakers. He finished with 20 points, hitting 4 of 10 from the 3-point arc, with five assists and a single turnover in 29 minutes.
“I had a little tweak, felt a little tight at some point, got a little stiff in the first half,” Jackson said. “But opened back up a little bit in the second half. Wasn’t anything that was going to keep me out of the game.”
It was a good night all around for the Pistons, who gained a game on Miami, restoring their cushion over the Heat to three full games after Miami lost a 23-point lead at home to lose to Milwaukee by 15. The Pistons, who got 19 points and 23 rebounds from Andre Drummond, also moved ahead of idle Brooklyn by percentage points to regain the No. 6 seed in the East.
Dwane Casey liked the response he saw from his team, too, even though the undermanned Lakers hung around long enough that Casey was forced to play his starters into the fourth quarter.
“I loved our compete level,” he said. “Win, lose or draw, when we fight and scrap like that, good things usually happen. I thought that was the difference. That’s what you’ve got to do at this time of year. It’s hard to get that energy level, the focus, but that’s what we’re here for.”
The Pistons, 35-33, get a Sunday-Monday back to back – home against Toronto, at Cleveland – before embarking on a challenging four-game Western Conference trip that concludes with games against three of the top four teams: Portland, Golden State and Denver.
And with that in mind, Blake Griffin wasn’t doing cartwheels over their relative struggle to pull away from the Lakers.
“They’ve got two guys out for the season, resting their best player, playing some call-up guys, played last night, from what I heard got in at 4 in the morning – and they played harder than us for most of the game,” he said. “Obviously, you take the wins but you’ve got to be playing with the right spirit and playing the right brand of basketball. I didn’t think we did that tonight. I could be wrong. Once I see the tape, I could be a little too hard on us. But I know what’s around the corner. We play that type of basketball, we’ll get run out of the gym.”
They might have gotten run out of Little Caesars if Langston Galloway hadn’t redeemed an otherwise miserable night for Casey’s bench. Galloway scored 23 points, hitting 4 of 6 from the 3-point arc and 8 of 10 overall, while the rest of the bench shot 7 of 20. The bench played poorly on offense to start the second quarter when the Lakers took their only lead, then poorly on defense to start the fourth quarter when they cut a 15-point deficit to eight.
“You’re not going to play 48 minutes of perfect basketball,” Casey said. “I wish we could. But that’s not going to happen this time of year. Right now, it’s about finding a way to win. Tonight was L.G.’s night. Sunday may be somebody else’s night.”