Three quick observations from Sunday night’s 97-85 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers…
SLAM DUNK – Injuries and hot streaks by other teams might change the equation as the season unfolds, but right now it looks unlikely the Pistons will face a more difficult 10-game stretch than the first 10 of the season they completed with Sunday’s loss at Los Angeles. Emerging with a 5-5 record – as disappointing as losing four straight to complete their six-game Western Conference road swing might be – is pretty good, all things considered. It’s just how they got there that’s going to eat at them. Reggie Jackson, brilliant just a week ago in a 40-point outburst as the Pistons rallied to beat Portland, was pulled in the fourth quarter for Spencer Dinwiddie. Jackson finished with nine points, three assists and five turnovers in 24 minutes; Dinwiddie finished with 17 points and four assists and one turnover in the other 24 minutes. Stan Van Gundy talked before the game about perspective in the midst of the losing streak. Not only have the Pistons played seven of their first 10 on the road, but they’ve played three games already where they were on the second half of a back-to-back set against a team that hadn’t played the night before – the case against the Lakers, too. The Pistons only have five more such games over their final 72. And they’ll also have eight games where they have the advantage, playing a team on the second end of its own back to back while the Pistons rested the previous night. Last season, the Pistons were a net minus-eight in those situations; they’ll wind up even this season. But, no getting around it, they’ll go home a disappointed and frustrated team.
FREE THROW – Stan Van Gundy shook up his rotation, not only using Spencer Dinwiddie instead of Steve blake to back up Reggie Jackson but expanding the playing group to 10 by moving Reggie Bullock back into the mix. Adding Bullock is an attempt to cut back on the heavy minutes Marcus Morris and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope have logged. They came into Sunday’s game second and third in the NBA in minutes per game, 38.6 for Morris and 38.1 for Caldwell-Pope. Morris began the season in the rotation but Van Gundy reshuffled the deck after the third game when his bench was outscored 43-2 by Indiana’s. There was a brief stretch early in the second quarter when Van Gundy had five bench players on the court together – the first time he’d done that since the Indiana game – but he got Jackson and Andre Drummond out of the game early enough in the first quarter that he could get them back in early in the second. Andre Drummond played 41 minutes, but nobody else played more than Caldwell-Pope’s 33.
3-POINTER – Andre Drummond recorded his 10th straight double-double to start the season, finishing with 17 points and 17 rebounds. Drummond came into the game averaging 18.7 points and 19.2 rebounds and leading the league in double-doubles, two ahead of Russell Westbrook. He’s putting up numbers not seen in the NBA in at least a generation and drawing comparisons to some of the all-time greats. Before Sunday’s game, Lakers coach Byron Scott said Drummond reminded him of a slightly more athletic Moses Malone. He’s won two Eastern Conference Player of the Weeks awards and had his name in the same sentence as Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabber for posting three 20-20 games in his first six of the season.
