LOS ANGELES – The defining theme of 2019 for the Pistons: injuries.
The 2018-19 season ended under the dark cloud of Blake Griffin’s knee injury and it’s hovered over the 2019 portion of the current season like a storm front that refuses to budge.
With Monday’s loss at Utah, the Pistons went 37-45 – almost never with their preferred starting lineup. For 2019-20, it’s yet to happen.
Griffin missed four of the last seven regular-season games and the first two playoff games last April, then the first 10 of this season and 14 of their 34 games to date. Reggie Jackson has missed the last 32 games and counting. Luke Kennard remains out until at least Jan. 7 with tendinitis in both knees that has cost him six games already.
It would be far more efficient to enumerate Pistons players who’ve been unaffected by injury this season: Langston Galloway. That’s the list.
“It’s tough, but like I’ve always said, there’s nobody going to feel sorry for you,” Dwane Casey said before the 2019 finale at Utah – a game that saw the Pistons without Griffin, Jackson, Kennard and Markieff Morris. “There’s 20 other teams jumping up and down, can’t wait to find you on the schedule. But in our locker room, what we’re trying to create is a culture of ‘next man up.’ ”
Amid the trips to the trainer’s room and the X-ray machine, there were joyous times, too. Here are five that stand out from 2019:
Jan. 12: BLAKE’S TRIUMPHANT RETURN
To say Blake Griffin didn’t shrink from the overwhelming scrutiny that came with playing his first game at Staples Center in something other than a Clippers uniform underplays his performance by a degree of magnitude.
Griffin was dominant: 44 points, eight rebounds, five assists in 40 minutes, leading a 109-104 Pistons win.
“I looked forward to seeing people I hadn’t seen in forever, people that I had grown to be very close with over my time here,” Griffin said. “But most importantly for us, we need wins right now. So coming in and focusing and getting that done was the most important thing for us.”
Less heralded was the performance of another ex-Clipper, Reggie Bullock. He scored 17 and hit 5 of 10 from the 3-point arc.
“Next time we come here, it won’t be the same,” Griffin said. “It’s nice to get that game over with. I compare it to the first game of the year. Such a big hype leading up to it and once it’s done, you’ve got play 81 more. Now we’ve got to play 41 more. It’s over. We’ve got a lot of basketball left to play.”
That next time will come in the first game of 2020 – Thursday. Whether Griffin plays or not speaks to the plight of the Pistons since their last visit to Staples Center.
MARCH 28: A STAR-CROSSED WIN
The Pistons dragged themselves home from a grinding Western road swing having lost three straight games against playoff teams: Portland, Golden State and Denver. They were in the thick of a four-team chase for the final three playoff spots with Brooklyn, Miami and Orlando.
That night’s opponent: Orlando. The Pistons went into the game at 37-37, a half-game ahead of the Magic. Brooklyn, at 38-37, was a half-game ahead of the Pistons; Miami, at 36-38, was one game behind.
Late in the second quarter, Orlando guard D.J. Augustin blocked a Wayne Ellington shot and let him know about it. On the inbounds play that resulted from the blocked shot, Ellington took the pass and drained a corner 3-point shot. He hit a flurry more to open the second half as the Pistons pulled away for a 115-98 win. Ellington finished with 25 points, hitting 7 of 13 triples.
“That was crazy,” Blake Griffin grinned about Ellington’s explosive shooting display. “Augustin woke him up. So kudos to D.J.”
Griffin added 20 points, 10 rebounds and five assists; Andre Drummond chipped in 18 points, 18 rebounds and six blocked shots.
Somewhere in that game, though, Griffin suffered the left knee injury that would idle him for the next game and four of the final seven of the regular season plus the first two postseason games.
APRIL 9: COMEBACK KIDS
Without Griffin and with the playoff race tightening – the Pistons had lost four of five since the Griffin injury – the Pistons needed to win each of their last two games to assure themselves of a playoff berth. The home finale came against Memphis, which at 32-48 had spent the second half of the season doing all it could to ensure greater lottery odds.
But that ragtag Memphis team, missing eight players who’d started or been part of the rotation at various points of the season, led by 22 points in the first half and still by 18 with two minutes left in the third quarter. The Pistons outscored Memphis 43-18 over the game’s final 14 minutes to win 100-93.
“Why we started off like that, I don’t know the answer to that,” Dwane Casey said. “I thought the second half we came out with a desperation, an upset attitude, and we ended the game that way.”
Andre Drummond finished with 20 points, 17 rebounds, five steals and three blocked shots, while Ish Smith had 22 points off the bench.
JUNE 20: FRENCH FLAIR
On a Sunday in mid-June, the Pistons brain trust traveled to suburban Dallas for an individual draft workout, the kind of thing common among NBA front offices at that time of year. But the Pistons were picking 15th and the workout was being held for Sekou Doumbouya, widely considered a top-10 talent.
It was due diligence more than anything else. The Pistons went there not expecting to have the chance to draft Doumbouya with the 15th pick and they left even more sure it wasn’t to be.
“We interviewed him. (Dwane Casey), Gregg Polinsky, our director of player personnel, myself,” Pistons front-office leader Ed Stefanski said. “Had a real nice interview. He went to the gym, the workout, and he had a big-time workout. He knocked down a ton of jump shots. I mean, a ton. When I left there, it was, nice trip to Frisco, Texas. I’ve never been there before.”
It was an upset that Doumbouya got out of the top 10 – Washington, picking ninth, was considered his likely floor – but it still seemed a long shot that he’d get past the four teams still to pick ahead of the Pistons. Phoenix threw the biggest curve of the draft, taking North Carolina’s Cameron Johnson 11th. Charlotte and Miami took Kentucky teammates P.J. Washington and Tyler Herro with the next two picks, then Boston chose Indiana’s Romeo Langford at 14.
That left the Pistons to take a player they never imagined would be available at 15. As the youngest player drafted – Doumbouya only turned 19 last week and is not only the youngest player in the NBA, but in the G League, as well – it was a play for the future.
“A top 10 talent,” ESPN analyst Mike Schmitz said. “He physically reminds me of Pascal Siakam in terms of a Swiss Army knife style of forwards.”
OCT. 23: OFF AND RUNNING
The Pistons took a punch on the eve of the 2019-20 season opener with news that Blake Griffin – who’d played in the first two preseason games, sat out the next as planned and then missed the last two with soreness in the left knee that was surgically repaired last April – would not only not make the trip to Indiana but be re-evaluated in two weeks.
But against a team that won 48 games last season, the Pistons came away with a 119-110 win amid the hoopla of opening night in a basketball-crazed state and they did it by dominating the fourth quarter, outscoring Indiana 36-24 to win 119-110.
The Pistons got three dominant performances with Griffin missing: Andre Drummond scored 32 points and grabbed 23 rebounds; Luke Kennard came off the bench to score a career-high 30 points; and Derrick Rose contributed 18 points and nine assists.
“That says a lot,” Dwane Casey said. “To be without our star guy back at home says a lot about our guys.”
Drummond had a 14-point, seven-rebound fourth. He hit 8 of 10 free throws after missing his first two and added four blocks, three steals and two assists for good measure.
“I’m happy he’s on my team,” Rose said after Drummond’s Herculean 41-minute outing against Indiana’s impressive twin big lineup of Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner. “It just feels good to win. We’re trying to change it one game at a time, one practice at a time.”