DENVER – There was no mystery for Stan Van Gundy about what enabled the Pistons to shave all but five points off of a 26-point deficit in a matter of a little more than eight minutes.
“We tried,” he said. “Played hard and we tried.”
About seven hours before tipoff and after the team’s morning shootaround, Van Gundy talked about the frustration of losing and how it undermines a team’s resilience. The Pistons showed plenty of the latter, but not until they’d given up 96 points in 33 minutes to another Western Conference team amid an insanely taut race for the final two playoff spots.
Storylines sprouted like mushrooms in the crazy second half – in which Dwight Buycks scored 19 of his 22 points and the Pistons, abetted by 8 of 14 3-point shooting, scored 62 points – but a few numbers from the first half painted a picture that made Van Gundy wince after Denver’s 120-113 win.
Second-chance points: Denver 16-0. Free-throw attempts: Denver 18-4. Those suggest – rather loudly – that the Nuggets were the more aggressive team.
“Quicker, more aggressive, more active, everything,” Van Gundy said. “Simply getting to rebounds, loose balls, attacking – they were a step ahead of us on everything in the first half, especially in the second quarter.”
It was a quarter that started with an all-bench unit after the Pistons and Nuggets mostly traded baskets during a first quarter that ended with Denver ahead by four. It quickly went to double digits, the frustration that Van Gundy referenced earlier in the day announcing itself.
The comeback, though, was launched largely with some of those same bench players on the floor. With 3:22 left in the third quarter, Denver led 96-70. By quarter’s end, the Pistons had pulled within 14. Blake Griffin hit a couple of triples, Reggie Bullock – back after missing Tuesday’s loss at Salt Lake City – drained one and Buycks added another.
“We got on a little hot streak shooting some threes and cut it down and continued to play the right way in the second half,” said Bullock, who finished with 17 points. “But we have to start the game like that with a greater sense of urgency and playing as hard as we did in the second half.”
The Pistons sliced the deficit to five on a pair of Buycks free throws when there was still 6:55 to play. Denver bumped its lead back to 10 less than a minute later, but the Pistons three times cut it back to six only to have Denver answer with penetration and a layup on consecutive possessions.
“They did a really good job of keeping me away from the basket,” said Andre Drummond, who finished with 21 points and 17 rebounds but had his hands full with the versatile Nikola Jokic, whose triple-double (23 points, 12 boards, 10 assists) was at the core of Denver’s 120-point night. “Jokic floated around the 3-point line most of the game. Definitely smart coaching and smart by them by keeping me away from the hoop.”
It was what Van Gundy feared most from Denver – its ability to put five 3-point shooters on the floor to spread you out, then beat you off the dribble with numerous perimeter playmakers.
“We could’ve done a better job (to defend the three consecutive layups, two by Will Barton and one by Jamal Murray),” Van Gundy said, “but, yeah, they’ve got a lot of good players and they did a good job. And Jokic just rocked us.”
The loss obscured another strong game from Griffin, who finished with 26 points and nine assists. Griffin hit 5 of 8 from the 3-point line. And that came even though Van Gundy again saw so little room for him to operate that he replaced Drummond four minutes into the third quarter with Anthony Tolliver to throw a different look at Denver.
“I wanted to get some more shooting around Blake because they had started to really take his room away,” Van Gundy said.
Griffin’s big game, Bullock’s return, Bucyks’ career night, Drummond’s 21 and 17 … the Pistons had a lot to celebrate but no one was in a celebratory mood after a spirited rally was wasted because it started when they trailed by too many points too late into the game.
“We finally started playing,” Drummond said. “We started playing as a unit and we made them uncomfortable defensively. We can’t take being down by (26) for us to pick up our energy. We’ve got to play with that same energy from when the ball goes up in the air.”