Three quick observations from Sunday night’s 98-92 loss to the Orlando Magic at The Palace Sports and Entertainment
SLAM DUNK – Reggie Jackson’s return was supposed to be the headline grabber, but the Pistons’ inability to hold down one of the league’s weakest offensive teams changed the storyline. Orlando came into the game ranked No. 1 over the past 10 games in defensive rating, but 29th in offensive rating. And yet the Magic scored with little resistance too often, and especially in the second quarter when they grabbed the game by the throat with 35 points on 73 percent shooting (16 of 22). It was a crashing return home for the Pistons after the euphoria of last week’s 3-0 road trip to Eastern Conference contenders Charlotte, Boston and Atlanta.Orlando led by 11 early in the third quarter, saw it cut to two, then pushed it back to 11 and was still up by 10 with nine minutes to play. The Pistons came within six with six minutes to play, but Orlando went on a 7-0 run over the next two-plus minutes to stretch its lead to 13 with 3:35 to play. The Pistons were better defensively in the second half, holding Orlando to 40 points, but their offense went cold. After shooting 51 percent in the first half and making half their 12 3-point attempts, the Pistons shot 37 percent in the second half and went 4 of 15 from the arc.
FREE THROW – Reggie Jackson was on a minutes limit and Stan Van Gundy chose to use him basically for the first half of each quarter. He finished with 18 points and four assists in 23 minutes, turning it over three times. Jackson hit 7 of 12 shots and 2 of 3 from the 3-point line, including a triple on his first shot on the game’s first possession. Jackson’s best stretch was in the third quarter, when he scored seven points and recorded two assists in 6:13, making two of three shots and both of his free throws. The good news is that Jackson’s jump shot didn’t look rusty and he showed no hesitation in taking the ball hard to the basket. He missed two layup attempts in the first quarter but showed good explosion on his drives, which was a question that needed to be answered coming off a platelet-rich plasma injection in his left knee to address chronic tendinitis that shelved him in the first week of training camp. After the Oct. 10 injection, a timetable of six to eight weeks was placed on Jackson’s return. Monday marks the eight-week mark. In his absence, Ish Smith averaged 10.8 points and 6.4 assists with only 1.5 turnovers in 30 minutes a game. Smith finished with 11 points and two assists against Orlando.
3-POINTER – With Beno Udrih now likely to play only in lopsided games or in the event of injury to Reggie Jackson or Ish Smith, how about a minute to reflect on both the job he did and the shrewdness of the move made by Stan Van Gundy and Jeff Bower to add him off the waiver wire on the eve of the regular season? Udrih had a long NBA track record dating to the 2004-05 season with the Spurs – yes, he played 44 minutes against the Pistons in the 2005 NBA Finals as a rookie – but it was fair to wonder what the Pistons were getting from a guy Miami cut in favor of Rodney McGruder, who went undrafted out of Kansas State in 2013 and hadn’t played in the NBA until Miami kept him. Udrih gave the Pistons everything they could have hoped to get. In 17.5 minutes a game, he averaged 7.0 points, 3.5 assists and less than one turnover (0.9) a game while shooting very well, .459 overall and .364 from the 3-point line. “He’s played really, really well,” Van Gundy said. “He knew coming in exactly what the situation was. It’s never easy. Nobody likes to go to the bench, particularly when they’re playing as well as he is. But that’s just the way it is. We’ve all known this was coming and everybody will just have to adjust.” Udrih and Ish Smith helped the Pistons to the league’s second-best turnover ratio of 12 percent, meaning only 12 percent of Detroit possessions resulted in turnovers.
