Three quick observations from Saturday night’s 103-86 win over the Denver Nuggets:
SLAM DUNK – It took all of a minute to grasp that the Pistons weren’t the same team that lost at Brooklyn in their last game while giving up 71 points in the first half. Their defense was active and suffocating. Andre Drummond had five points, a blocked shot, a steal and a transition dunk in the first 65 seconds, by which time the Pistons led 8-0 and had already forced a Denver timeout. Drummond’s three first-half blocked shots gave him 500 for his career. He finished with 19points and 20 rebounds. The Nuggets were held to 18.5 percent shooting in the first quarter and trailed 29-12. Michigan native Wilson Chandler, the 2005 Mr. Basketball out of Benton Harbor, pulled Denver back in the game with 15 first-half points off the bench as the Nuggets crept within seven at halftime. The Pistons put together a few more stingy defensive stretches, the first coming after Denver scored the first basket of the third quarter but then went seven straight possessions without a point. The Pistons led by 10 after three quarters and then scored the first 10 points of the fourth quarter, again holding Denver scoreless for seven straight possessions to effectively put the game away. Their defense held Denver to 33 percent shooting and the Pistons have held all four home opponents under 90 while winning by an average margin of 17.8.
FREE THROW – The Pistons have had both Marcus Morris and Tobias Harris going in most of their games this season, but neither had a night to remember against Denver. Harris came in shooting .582 through five games and got largely the same types of shots, but wound up with nine points on 4 of 11 shooting. Morris scored just four first-half points, though a nice run in the fourth quarter got him to 15. But their combined 24 points was 15 under their combined average for the season. Jon Leuer helped bail them out Stan Van Gundy is essentially using a three-man rotation among those players at the two forward spots, Harris swinging between power forward and small forward. Leuer scored a season-best 15 points and showed off his scoring versatility by scoring in the post, in transition, at the 3-point line and with a power dunk after grabbing an offensive rebound in traffic.
3-POINTER – Stanley Johnson came into Saturday’s game with a total of six points through the first five games, the fewest points of any player in the league with a minimum of 90 minutes. He snapped out of it against Denver, missing his first shot – a corner triple that was in, then rattled out – but then hit five straight and finished with 12 points on 5 of 7 shooting. Van Gundy saw it coming, kinda sorta. Johnson got in a long shooting workout with associate head coach Bob Beyer on Thursday “at game speed,” Van Gundy said, adding, “Yesterday in practice he looked a little bit better. He started camp forcing everything, trying to do too much actually, and then we tried to rein him in. Probably reined him in too far to where he as trying to do nothing. Now he’s trying to find the balance of being aggressive but taking good shots, making good plays, not just forcing things. It can’t be all one or the other. This is a game of decisions and he’s got to get good shots.”
