DETROIT – For all the things they did well for long stretches, the Pistons did one thing very poorly – and very atypically – for the middle two quarters of what turned out to be a win Monday over the very good and very scrappy Indiana Pacers.
Rebounding isn’t usually something that betrays the Pistons, but it was Indiana’s offensive rebounding that erased a 16-point Pistons lead after one quarter and allowed the Pacers to tie the game late in the third quarter at 75.
But the Pistons – who would win their seventh in eight games and third straight since the All-Star break, 113-109 – didn’t allow Indiana a single offensive rebound in the fourth quarter. Eleven of Indiana’s 12 offensive rebounds came in the middle two quarters when they scored 18 of their 20 second-chance points.
“At halftime, we talked about that,” Blake Griffin said. “I just thought we didn’t do a great job in the third quarter of executing on that. But I thought the fourth quarter, when we really needed ’em, we did a good job of keeping them off the glass.”
And that is exactly how teams on a roll stay that way. Every NBA game takes on a life of its own. Teams that understand the unique rhythms individual games adopt and adapt to them find success.
The Pistons, two games out of the final playoff spot in the East three weeks ago, now find themselves in the No. 7 position, two full games ahead of Orlando in ninth and 1½ ahead of Charlotte, which lost to Golden State on Monday while Miami lost again at home to Phoenix, which snapped a 17-game losing streak, and fell two full games behind the Pistons into 10th.
The Pistons identified the thing that threatened to cost them a game and stall their momentum and got it fixed, emphatically.
“We did a much better job of controlling (Indiana’s rebounding),” Dwane Casey said. “We overtook them 47-42 and I thought that was the difference in the game – and our passing. We had 28 assists, which was huge. There’s nothing like making shots.”
For a team that misfired for so much of the season, the Pistons have lately caught fire as Casey kept insisting they would. Even when the Pistons occupied the 29th or 30 spots in NBA 3-point shooting, as they did for much of the first half of the season, they were generating as many open 3-point attempts as anyone. They’re falling now.
The Pistons finished 18 of 41 against Indiana with Griffin and Luke Kennard each hitting five triples and newcomer Wayne Ellington hitting four.
“We’re being aggressive,” said Kennard, who followed up his 17-point outing in Saturday’s big win at Miami with 19 more, his five triples coming on only eight attempts. “The pace has been great. Our point guards have gotten the ball up the floor really fast for us. The pace opens the floor up and we’ve got guys ready to shoot, being aggressive to shoot the ball. And they want us to shoot. We have any kind of space, they want us to shoot. That’s what we’ve been doing and we’ve got to continue it.”
Griffin finished with a triple-double – 20 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists. It’s a measure of the way he’s evolved that Griffin had that type of impact on a game in which he made just 1 of 8 shots inside the 3-point arc.
“Blake is making good decisions moving the ball,” Casey said. “Everybody is. And everybody is shot ready and getting a rhythm with a shot.”
It speaks to the 180 the Pistons have executed that we get this far into an account of their win over a team that started the night 20 games over .500 before mentioning Andre Drummond. All he did was score 26 points, grab 16 rebounds and block three shots. He also committed a single turnover in 38 minutes, reflective of the much better decision-making he’s exhibited as the Pistons have turned their season around.
“He’s matured,” Casey said. “I think that’s a beautiful thing. It’s infectious. Once he does it, the next guy makes the next pass. He’s doing a great job of finding the weak side. If you’ve got a guy in front of you, that means somebody’s open. He’s making good decisions in that situation.”
“In this stretch, he’s been a monster,” Griffin said. “He’s imposed his will, not only offense and defense but the in-between stuff – the 50-50 balls, just intimidating people going to the rim. And he’s been locked in. So part of that is reading the right play. Our coaches talk about it all the time. When he draws the double team in there and guys are spaced and ready to shoot, he’s done a great job of finding those guys.”
The Pistons, 22-29 after losing to the Clippers on Feb. 2, pulled within a game of .500 at 29-30 with this latest win. They came into the game ranked No. 1 in offense and No. 5 in defense over their previous seven games.
“I talked before the break, we were playing our basketball,” Griffin said of the turnaround. “We were executing our principles that we’ve gone over since day one of training camp. We were taking care of the ball, playing basketball the right way, extra passes, the right passes, taking shots when we’re supposed to. That brand of basketball has made us successful. We beat some good teams playing that type of basketball, so it’s about us. And in this stretch, it’s been about us.”