Three quick observations from Thursday night’s 103-101 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies…
SLAM DUNK – If you can find two more miraculously painful ways to lose games to the same team a month apart, good luck. The Pistons lost at the buzzer on a Matt Barnes half-court heave last month at The Palace and saw Memphis come back from eight points down – after the Grizzlies led by 13 early in the fourth quarter – to win when Mario Chalmers scored five points in the last 29 seconds Thursday. His three free throws, after being fouled by Brandon Jennings, tied the game. After Marcus Morris was stripped while rising for a baseline jump shot with about eight seconds left, Chalmers came downcourt and appeared to lose the ball. In the scramble to recover it, he got there a half-step ahead of everyone and threw up a crazy shot with Aron Baynes clipping his legs from 19 feet. It went in with 0.8 to play. Barnes again killed the Pistons, going 6 of 6 from the 3-point line for 18 points. Rookie Stanley Johnson scored 11 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Pistons, who went on a 20-2 run after falling behind by 13 with 10:26 to go.
FREE THROW – The Pistons are a low-turnover team – they came into Thursday’s game ranked 10th in the league with a little less than 14 a game – but it seems like when they commit them they come in bunches. That was surely the case against Memphis when, after a clean first quarter in which the Pistons coughed it up only twice and led 24-21, they committed 10 in the second quarter to scuttle way too many possessions. The Grizzlies outscored the Pistons 27-19 in the quarter to take a five-point halftime lead. The turnovers came in all shapes and sizes. Aron Baynes picked up two for illegal screens. Marcus Morris had three in the quarter on some risky passes, including one when the Pistons could have gotten the last shot of the quarter, instead opening the door for Memphis to score the last basket and increase its lead. Andre Drummond was stripped twice by Marc Gasol. The Pistons finished with 20 turnovers – fittingly, the game turned on the last one with Morris committing his sixth of the game on the final Pistons possession.
3-POINTER – The Eastern Conference playoff race is so jammed up – four games in the loss column separating the current No. 2 seed, Toronto, from the current No. 9 seed, Orlando, going into Thursday night’s schedule – that it’s tough to gauge what benefits the Pistons more when two teams from that muddle meet. There were three games in the last 24 hours that pitted a team ahead of the Pistons in the standings against a team behind them. Indiana lost at Boston and Atlanta lost at Charlotte on Wednesday night, and while that brought the Pistons a half-game closer to jumping up a spot in the pecking order, it also brought the Hornets and Celtics a little closer to their heels. Toronto’s win in London over Orlando on Thursday afternoon gave the Pistons a little more breathing room from behind, but helped Toronto solidify its standing as the second seed behind Cleveland. Three basketball websites project the Pistons into the Eastern Conference playoff field: BasketballReference.com has them finishing 45-37 with a 79.9 percent chance to make the postseason field; TeamRankings.com has them finishing 44-38 with a 72.7 percent chance; and ESPN.com also has them at 44-38 with a 71.2 percent shot. But one loss that the model doesn’t predict – not to mention one significant injury – would alter those projections quickly and perhaps severely.
