OAKLAND – The Pistons braced for the worst once they learned that the lottery-bound Dallas Mavericks laid a 35-point stomping on Golden State while they were losing to Portland on Saturday.
But bracing for a Category 5 hurricane and withstanding it are separate matters.
All things considered, the Pistons held up pretty well. A night after the Warriors shot 4 of 30 from the 3-point arc – even if that 4 of 30 came with Steph Curry taking the night off – it was inevitable they were going to shoot it more closely to their elite level against the Pistons.
And, of course, they did. They matched Saturday’s four made threes in the first quarter and in 24 fewer shots than they required in their humiliating home loss to Dallas. Curry made 5 of 10, Klay Thompson 4 of 6, the Warriors 13 of 25. That makes three games over the last five that the opposition has shot 50 percent or better with Portland hitting 42 percent.
Even with as random as 3-point shooting can be at times, Dwane Casey admits the Pistons’ sudden vulnerability is a concern. But he’s not about to use a hot shooting night by Golden State as a litmus test.
“It’s very, very troubling,” he said after the 121-114 loss. “Against this team, it’s an outlier. I would say this is a different animal. I think you have to take this team out, but everybody else we’ve got to make sure we have attention to detail.”
Nobody makes you pay for momentary lapses quite like the Warriors. For the Pistons, their lapse came at the end of the second quarter. Just as the last four minutes of Saturday’s loss at Portland – when the Pistons went scoreless on six straight possessions to see a six-point lead become a six-point deficit – cost them a great shot at winning, the last four minutes of Sunday’s first half were similarly costly.
Luke Kennard’s layup with 3:47 to play before halftime pulled the Pistons within four, even though the Warriors had maintained a 60 percent-plus shooting percentage throughout the game. At halftime, the deficit was 14.
“Coach talked about it after the game,” Thon Maker said after the Pistons cut a 20-point deficit in the fourth quarter to seven. “We have to come out and start the way we did at the end. Just play hard like that from the beginning and not wait until the second half. That starts with myself and the second unit. We’ve got to do a better job, especially in the second quarter, of coming in hot instead of waiting until the second half.”
Maker, Kennard and Ish Smith led the charge off the bench. Kennard scored 20 points, hitting 8 of 12 shots and 3 of 4 triples. Maker had 12 points and six rebounds, Smith 14 points and four assists. Blake Griffin led the Pistons with 24 points, six rebounds and eight assists. The cumulative effort would have been enough to beat a lot of teams, but not the reigning NBA champions on a night their attention had been fully engaged.
“We knew they were going to come out and play hard after last night’s loss,” Smith said. “I thought we came out and competed. But you don’t get moral victories. You’ve got to come out with wins.”
The loss dropped the Pistons a game behind Brooklyn and into the No. 7 playoff spot, one game ahead of Miami and two ahead of Orlando. The Pistons wrap up their four-game trip at Denver on Tuesday. The last game of a road trip is usually problematic and playing it at altitude, even if the effects are as much psychological as physical, adds to the challenge the Pistons face against a team only a half-game behind Golden State at the top of the Western Conference.
Casey at least was encouraged by the fight he saw from a tired team up against a fired-up crowd behind a team looking to erase the stain of Saturday’s loss.
“Our execution for three quarters was pretty good. The second quarter is what bit us in the behind,” he said. “Our intensity level, the sense of urgency was there I the third and fourth quarter to get back in the game. That’s something we’ve got to build on.”
“Every game we’ve lost on this road trip so far, we’ve been right there with those teams,” Maker said. “We can take that away – just the fight, always have that. We’ve got to find a way to bring it out early in games and not wait until we’re really behind to use all that energy. I think that’s the biggest takeaway and I think we still have a good chance of doing that in Denver.”