Wizards ruin Bagley’s Pistons debut with late run

Three quick observations from Monday night’s 103-94 loss to the Washington Wizards at Capital One Arena.

SOLID START – Marvin Bagley III made a solid first impression in his Pistons debut, finishing with 10 points and eight rebounds in 21 minutes. Bagley was the first big man off the bench, coming on at center for Isaiah Stewart with 4:24 left in the first quarter. He scored two quick baskets inside, the first on a nice spin move and the second using his length to make himself available for a Killian Hayes feed and scoring over the top of Washington’s defense. Bagley also played with Kelly Olynyk on the second unit where their versatility makes them virtually interchangeable. In the second half, Dwane Casey played Bagley for a longer stretch, leaving him in to play with the starers until bringing Isaiah Stewart back with a little less than five minutes to play. Bagley drew a charge and was called for a flagrant-1 foul for not giving Rui Hachimura room to land on a successful 3-point attempt, which resulted in a six-point Wizards possession. He came on at the same point of the third quarter and again scored a couple of quick baskets, including an impressive deep baseline hook. Bagley is enough of a scoring threat around the rim that he got to the foul line six times, though he made only two. The Pistons were within two points with six minutes to play, but a 9-0 Washington run ended by a Cory Joseph 3-pointer with two minutes left iced the win for the Wizards. Cade Cunningham, playing his second game since missing five with a hip pointer, started slowly and was limited to 12 first-half minutes by foul trouble, but got rolling in the third quarter. Dwane Casey challenged what would have been Cunningham’s fifth foul with 9:31 left in the third quarter and the call was overturned, Cunningham scored eight points in the next four minutes and finished with 12 points, four rebounds and four assists but shot just 5 of 16. 

SECOND UNIT STRUGGLE – With Marvin Bagley added to the mix, Trey Lyles and Josh Jackson subtracted and Frank Jackson out with back spasms, the Pistons had a new-look second unit that consisted of Bagley, Kelly Olynyk, Rodney McGruder, Hamidou Diallo and Killian Hayes. With Olynyk still struggling after returning from his stint with COVID-19 that came two games after his coming back from a 33-game absence with a knee injury, there’s not a lot of 3-point shooting with that mix while Frank Jackson is out. McGruder shoots 40 percent from the arc, though he’s played in only 31 games and averages 14 minutes. Hayes and Olynyk are both shooting less than 28 percent from three and Diallo is less than 25 percent on relatively low volume. Dwane Casey believes Bagley will grow into a floor-stretching big man, but so far he’s a career 30 percent 3-point shooter who’s at 24 percent this season. That unit scored four points in nearly five minutes to start the second quarter before Casey called timeout and rushed his starters back into the game. In the second half, Casey staggered the minutes to have Cory Joseph at point guard to start the fourth quarter with the bench unit. That move paid off. The bench chipped away at a nine-point deficit, cutting it to five with 7:18 to play when Casey began re-inserting his starters.

BEY WATCH – Saddiq Bey didn’t waste much time extending his streak of games with a 3-pointer made to 31, the fifth-longest active streak in the NBA. Bey scored 11 of the first 13 Pistons points and had 18 of their 50 first-half points on just 10 shots, hitting 3 of 6 from the 3-point arc. He finished with 24 points, five rebounds and five assists. One of Bey’s less heralded but vitally important attributes so far has been his durability. Bey didn’t play in the first game of his rookie season, held out of the rotation, but he’s played in 127 of 128 games since then and in all 57 so far this season. Not only that, he’s playing increasingly heavy minutes, leading the Pistons in minutes per game at 33.5 and coming into Monday’s game eighth in the NBA in total minutes for the season. Bey, named to the All-Rookie first team after being picked 19^th in 2020, got off to a slow start this season, averaging 11.9 points and shooting 30 percent from the 3-point arc in his first 26 games. But since Dec. 16 – or about the time Jerami Grant was sidelined with a thumb injury and Bey’s role became magnified – he’s averaged 19.1 points and has shot better from the 3-point arc (37 percent) than he did overall (35 percent) prior to that.