Three quick observations from Monday night’s 104-84 loss to the Charlotte Hornets…
SLAM DUNK – Stan Van Gundy admits he goes a little crazy when he has to balance his desire to practice against the need to rest a team in the midst of a heavy stretch of the schedule. He especially worries about minor cracks in the defense starting to rupture without the type of attention to detail that practice affords him. The Pistons have had two practices in the last two weeks. The defensive slippage Van Gundy sensed was evident in Monday’s loss at Charlotte, when the Pistons allowed the Hornets to score 62 first-half points – an opponent’s high for the season – and never have to sweat the outcome much in the second half. The Pistons trailed by 11 at halftime and saw it balloon to 26 in the third quarter before a 13-0 run cut the deficit back to 13 with 10 minutes to play. But after five straight scoreless possessions, Charlotte restored its lead to 22 points to end the threat. Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson both picked up third fouls in the second quarter and finished the half on the bench, then Drummond picked up his fifth midway through the third quarter. Both finished far below their norms, Drummond with nine points and nine rebounds, Jackson with four points and one assist. Steve Blake gave the Pistons a lift with seven assists in 20 minutes – nearly half the team’s total of 16 when he checked out. It was the fourth straight road loss for the Pistons, who are 8-2 at home and 4-8 on the road.
FREE THROW – If it seems like we’ve been talking about the Pistons’ schedule quite a bit so far, it’s with good reason. While their schedule overall isn’t that far out of whack – although they again are tied for the league lead with 20 back-to-back sets – the front end of it was set up to be particularly taxing. Monday marked the completion of their sixth set of three games in four nights already. The Pistons have eight occasions this season where they’re playing the second night of a back to back against a team that had been off the previous night and Monday’s game at Charlotte marked the fifth one already in the season’s first 22 games. With Monday’s loss, the Pistons fell to 1-4 in such games. The good news, of course, is that they will have a more favorable schedule over the final two-thirds of the season. It doesn’t get any easier in the short term, though. The Pistons will have another three-in-four stretch starting Wednesday when they host Memphis, followed by a Friday-Saturday back to back at Philadelphia and home against Indiana.
3-POINTER – He didn’t get to cherish the honor for long, given the type of night Reggie Jackson had in Charlotte, but earlier in the day he was named Eastern Conference Player of the Week. That gives the Pistons three of the six honorees so far this season. Andre Drummond won for the first two weeks of the season. LeBron James, Paul George and Nicolas Batum were the three other winners so far this season. Jackson averaged 27.0 points and 8.8 assists for the week and recorded the first 30-point, 15-assist game – scoring 34 points with 16 assists in leading a 127-122 overtime win over Phoenix – by a Pistons player since Isiah Thomas in 1988. Jackson shot 57 percent from the field and better than 50 percent (9 of 17) from the 3-point line while committing just nine turnovers against his 35 assists. Through 21 games, Jackson averaged 20.0 points, 6.6 assists and 4.1 rebounds while shooting .438 overall and .370 from the 3-point line.
