A few days before last week’s season opener, Ausar Thompson mulled a question about what he’d found most challenging so far in his rookie experience.
Nothing struck him as especially daunting, which adds up. He’s been a dynamo since his first minutes in Summer League. But then he thought about the road ahead.
“The next challenging thing,” he said, “is four games in six days. I’ve never done it.”
The Pistons, who played with such unmistakable force in winning two of their first three games, just didn’t have much behind their punch Monday night in Oklahoma City, losing 124-112. The Thunder became the first team to shoot better than 42 percent – and clearing that bar with ease, hitting 53 percent – and the first to blow past 100.
The Pistons held Miami to 103, Charlotte to 99 and Chicago to 102. They outrebounded all three and comfortably, with margins of eight, 12 and 21. Oklahoma City won that category, too, 44-41.
The two youngest Pistons, the two most athletic Pistons, are Jalen Duren, 19, and Thompson, 20. Duren was breathtaking through three games, stamping himself as a Most Improved Player candidate in averaging 18.0 points, 15.3 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 2.7 blocked shots. He was the standout when the Pistons survived Zach LaVine’s 51-point outburst to win their home opener on Saturday with 23 points, 15 rebounds, five assists and two blocks.
But he also played more than 30 minutes both Friday and Saturday. And Sunday, about 36 hours after the Pistons got home from their season-opening road trip to Miami and Charlotte, they were back in the air en route to Oklahoma City after Saturday’s emotionally draining opener.
Duren’s wow factor wasn’t quite there on Monday and that was even before he gave the Pistons a scare, coming down on another player’s foot and turning his left ankle. He didn’t come out of the game, but injuries to both ankles dogged him last season and Williams pulled the plug on him after a season-low 23 minutes. The Pistons got an even bigger scare in the second half when Thompson landed awkwardly and clutched at his lower left leg.
It appears the Pistons got out of Oklahoma City with nothing more than a loss. Both Duren and Thompson, from everything Monty Williams knew, should be good to go when the Pistons host Portland on Wednesday.
Thompson’s injury, it turned out, was a cramp – the kind of thing that happens after spending so much time at 30,000 and playing four games in six nights when earthbound.
“I was glad they told me he could go back out there,” Williams said. “From what I know, he just had a cramp. He’s just a little sore. He’ll be OK. We’ve been traveling and moving around and it can get to you a little bit. Start the season off with three in four nights, come home, get on the road and then come out and play OKC. It’s like they’re proving the load-management thing. They got all the data and said load management doesn’t work. We’re going to show you guys with the Pistons.”
That last bit was reference to the NBA, just before the season started, claiming that its research now showed the recent trend of resting players to pre-emptively prevent injuries isn’t merited.
And that might well be true. But for a young team like the Pistons with a first-year coach who’s drilled into them the need to play with great energy on a consistent basis, well, that’s easier said than done when the effects of travel and a heavy dose of games in a compressed time frame add up.
“I’m sure we were a bit tired from all the travel and playing an emotional game,” Williams said. “And that can contribute to some of the fatigue we saw out there tonight.”
Before the cramp got him, Thompson gave the Pistons even more reason to be thrilled for his future – and his impact on their future. He finished with 15 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, three blocked shots and a steal in 31 minutes.
And for the second straight game, Thompson had a stretch of brilliant defense against one of the NBA’s most dynamic players, Shai Gilgeous Alexander. Over a two-minute window of the second quarter, Thompson blocked his shot, forced him into a travel and goaded him into an offensive foul. When the Pistons put Thompson on LaVine midway through the fourth quarter on Saturday, he blocked a LaVine shot, forced him into some preposterously tough shots and chased him down from behind to pick his pocket.
It doesn’t let up anytime soon for the Pistons, who after hosting Portland on Wednesday get back on a plane for a flight to New Orleans and another back-to-back. But they’ll have their two youngest, most athletic players back in the lineup – and that’s what matters most about Monday’s aftermath.
Young teams that lean on energy and athleticism have to figure out how to win on nights their energy gauge hovers at half-full and dulls their athleticism. The good news is their batteries recharge pretty quickly.
“We have to stick to our identity,” Williams said. “Which is defending and playing with great effort and having great discipline. Tonight was one of the first times I didn’t see the discipline at a great, great level. It was inconsistent. We hung in there and fought even when we were turning it over. But having the fight and the discipline is how we have to play.”