“Bad Boys to the Bone!”
Well, hello, there. Stan Van Gundy! Did you have yourself a Happy Smoove Buyout Day?
One day before tonight’s tangle between the Detroit Pistons and the host Atlanta Hawks (8:00 PM Eastern, Fox Sports South, Fox Sports Detroit), yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of Van Gundy inviting Josh Smith into his office to advise: “Look, it’s not you, it’s… okay, screw it, it’s you. We’re cutting you loose!”
The Pistons sat at 5-23 when their GM/coach elected to apply the CBA’s stretch provision to his most notorious stretch-four. Even 5-23 doesn’t begin to reflect the scale of abject dysfunction that pervaded the roster, symbolized by its highest-salaried player, signed to a head-scratching free agent deal by a GM that no longer worked there.
This was 5-23 with Smith, with Brandon Jennings, with Greg Monroe, with Andre Drummond. The team was a nightly #NotTop10 laughingstock. Piston fans were Pistoff, and Detroit’s once-proud suburban home attendance had fallen through the Palace floor. Just getting settled into the Motor City, Van Gundy wasn’t about to crash-and-burn in this Edsel. He knew Detroit would have to consult the White House to find a bailout more momentous than placing Josh Smith on waivers.
Jumpshot Josh bounced from Motown to an eventful stop in H-Town, and now sulks and seethes on the bench in Tinseltown while averaging several career-lows, alongside just the latest head coach with that how-do-I-get-this-dookie-off-my-shoe look etched on his face. Picking up new paychecks at each stop along the way, he stopped by A-Town last March, and bragged to Ryan Cameron that “It’s a new day!” after sinking some lucky threes. Van Gundy could not possibly agree more with you, Josh.
After waiving Smith, Detroit played .500-ball the rest of the way (27-27) through last season, threatening to break into the playoffs, and might have done even better were it not for Jennings rupturing his Achilles amidst their January turnaround. Since the waiver, the Pistons are a sound 44-39 coming into tonight’s meeting with another one of Smoove’s grateful former employers.
Detroit didn’t chase Monroe is free agency, and now That Other Moose is handsomely paid on a Central Division rival that can’t seem to find traction. Midway through last season, and again this summer, they rolled the dice and committed to a backup lead guard from Oklahoma City. Today, Reggie Jackson (career-highs 20.4 PPG, 6.4 APG, 35.5 3FG%) waltzes into tonight’s contest as the reigning Eastern Conference Player of the Week. It is Jackson’s second such honor this season, matching Drummond, who won it for each of the first two weeks of the NBA season.
No longer flanked by Smith and Monroe, Drummond has continues to come into his own. He earned his first weekly honor of the season, in part, by trouncing Budball with 18 points and 19 rebounds in a season-opening 106-94 win over the defending regular-season conference champs in Atlanta.
19 boards would count as a career day for most NBA players, but Drummond has already met or bested that tally eight times this season. That included 29 boards one week after the Hawks game, versus Indiana, and 21 rebounds in Chicago last Friday in a back-and-forth battle that stretched through four overtimes. Playing 54 minutes, Dre would certainly have grabbed even more boards had he not fouled out with just over a minute left.
The Windy City win was the first four-OT game in the NBA since Jeff Teague’s Hawks nipped Paul Millsap’s Utah Jazz back in March 2012. But while Chicago had to fly out to New York for a game the next night, Detroit followed up their running of the Bulls with a restful three-day layoff.
Still, one can hope that when the Pistons flew into Hartsfield-Jackson, their arms were tired. Much like the Hawks’ last opponent, the Pistons arrive in Atlanta one night after squeaking out a win in Miami, storming back from being 18 points down in the second quarter. The AJC's C-Viv notes they arrived early this morning, due to the soupy weather delaying their flight from South Florida. Detroit is 0-for-3 thus far, including a loss to the Lakers, when playing the back end of a back-to-back on the road.
Stan has kept things steady among the starters. Detroit (17-12) has maintained the same starting-five since the successful season opener in ATL, with Jackson and Drummond joined by Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and forwards Marcus Morris and Ersan Ilyasova.
Due largely to a lack of healthy options and backcourt defenders, KCP (30.2 3FG%) is second only to Houston’s James Harden in daily NBA floor time, averaging 38 minutes per game. The former UGA star’s offense is beginning to turn a huge corner as well. Despite going 7-for-14 (4-for-7 3FGs) in Atlanta in October, his field-goal shooting was in the dirty thirties (38.9 FG%) through November.
But KCP’s jumper is looking extra-crispy lately, particularly when Detroit is desperate for a closer to take pressure off of Jackson. He’s been shooting 43.9 FG% this month, hitting a big triple with under two minutes left in the fourth OT to corral the bickering Bulls, and overcoming a rough shooting night with the final seven Piston points to temper the heat yesterday.
Jennings has returned to the lineup for the Pistons, and his good-soldier attitude (“best PG in the East right now,” he tweeted two days ago) has defused any questions so far about the Jackson/Jennings dynamic. He will be used not only as a Jackson backup but, more likely, as a secondary shooting guard to relieve Caldwell-Pope (40 minutes yesterday in Miami).
While he’s unlikely to appear tonight, Jennings is expected to boost the bench, as he gets back up to speed. But he may also get showcased in Van Gundy’s quest to improve Detroit’s shallow backcourt situation. Jennings’ $8.3 million salary concludes his contract this coming summer.
Detroit has managed without not only Jennings but Jodie Meeks. The former Norcross High standout, Meeks fractured his foot in just the second game of the season and remains out for a couple more months. Factor in the recurring D-League development of youngsters at the bottom of the depth chart (Spencer Dinwiddie, Darrun Hilliard, and Reggie Bullock) and Jackson, KCP and the crafty Steve Blake have had the guard rotation essentially all to themselves.
Due to the diminished depth, and the boundless energy of Van Gundy’s young upstart starters (you too, Ersan), Detroit’s reserves rank last in the league with a collective 15.6 minutes per game, 23.3 PPG, 37.3 FG%, and 2.0 SPG. But the marksmanship of ex-Hawk Anthony Tolliver, Blake, and rookie Stanley Johnson last night (collective 11-for-17 3FGs @ MIA) helped Detroit’s reserves quickly turn the tables on the heat in the second quarter.
The Hawks have to push the pace on the Pistons, and Jeff Teague needs to lead the way. The Hawks still go as Jeff goes: 12-0 when he posts a plus-minus of zero of better, 17-2 when it’s minus-3 or better, eight double-digit losses (including to these Pistons) when he’s done worse. Teague (38.5 2FG% in December) has contributed either 20 points or 10 assists just once in the past ten games, and that was ten games ago.
On offense, especially when his jumpshot isn’t falling (4-for-12 FGs, 0-for-4 3FGs vs. Tim Frazier and Poor-tland), he must work his way around Jackson and draw help defenders into the paint. Atlanta is 9-1 when Teague gets at least six free throw attempts. He’ll find lanes to attack whenever triple threat Kyle Korver (8-for-12 3FGs last two games) draws Caldwell-Pope to the other side of the floor.
On defense, Teague (1.1 SPG, down from 1.7 in 2014-15) must get back to bringing the same fullcourt terror to opposing guards that he provided consistently last season when the Hawks got on a wintertime roll. In the ten losses where Teague played this season, he totaled just 7 steals. It’s his responsibility to make shoot-first PGs like Jackson work the full floor.
Jeff must not only spark the Hawks, who thrive off scoring from opponent turnovers, but make opponents pay by converting those opportunities into points. Among the top 25 NBA players in transition possessions, Teague’s 21.0 turnover percentage on those possessions ranks as the second-worst, and his 55.8 eFG% is the fifth-worst.
While Teague has been merely putting on the veneer of a top-flight point guard, Dennis Schröder (7-for-10 FGs, team-high 18 points in just 17 minutes) took his own veneer and stuffed it in his sock, while socking it to the toothless Trail Blazers on Monday. The gummin’ German has recommitted himself to defend opposing guards better (2.4 SPG in last 5 games, 0.8 before that), and it’s resulted in an uptick in productive floor time (52.0 FG%, 50.0 3FG%, 5.0 APG, 1.6 TOs/game in last 5 games).
Schröder and the bench corps must exploit the rest-and-preparation advantage over their lead-legged Detroit counterparts. Thabo Sefolosha will join Kent Bazemore in forcing tough perimeter shots, but it will help a ton if Lamar Patterson (one steal in his last 13 appearances) can get a couple stops, or if Justin (no significant minutes since November 21) can make the Holidays happy.
Tight-but-smart defensive pressure along the perimeter and limiting dribble penetration by Piston guards will lighten the load for Paul Millsap and Michigander Al Horford as they try to keep Drummond and Morris (13 combined O-Rebs, 29 boards @ATL on Oct. 27) from piling up second-chance points, which is naturally the Pistons’ specialty (league-high 15.8 PPG).
Horford and Millsap (who, like Teague, will play through a tweaked ankle) are among the league’s top-ten in Roll Man possessions, and Al is hoppin’ when he’s not just pick-and-poppin’. Among the top 15 Roll Men, Horford’s 55.9 eFG% is tops, while his 2.9 turnover percentage on those possessions is the best among the Top 30. Atlanta’s ball handlers must recognize this and feed Horford early and often on rolls to the rim.
Millsap, meanwhile, ranks 2nd among the league’s Top-20 in eFG% on Post-Up possessions, and 31.6% of those Post-Ups ending in free throw chances blows away the field among the NBA’s Top-50 post-uppers. Atlanta’s bigs, including Mike Scott, Tiago Splitter and The Real Moose, must be relentless on interior shots against a Detroit team that allows 45.2 PPG in the paint (most in the East), and their guards must be clever enough to feed the bigs when they’ve got the likes of Ilyasova, Morris, and Tolliver covering them.
Sharp passing and assertiveness can neutralize Drummond’s cherry-picking ways, compelling him to focus more on his defensive tasks, and making plays on the drivers and cutters rather than the ball itself. With the floor spread out in his favor last night, Chris Bosh didn’t bother to ask his doctor before feeding Drummond a pill or two around the rim, and Horford can certainly follow suit tonight.
Drummond’s dominance in the offensive rebounding column has just as much to do with the Pistons’ own struggles making halfcourt shots (50.7% true shooting, tied for 2nd-worst in NBA) as anything else. Detroit only shot 37.9% on two-pointers back on Oct. 27, but 12-for-29 (41.4%) on threes (Detroit’s 8-1 when they sink ten or more).
Last season’s MLK Day game saw Drummond nab 11 of his 18 rebounds (surpassed in the same game by Monroe’s 20) in the first quarter, but Detroit could muster only 12 points (8-for-24 FGs, 0-for-6 3FGs) in that frame. Last season, Atlanta’s opponents took the bait and jacked a league-high 25.8 threes per game, but shot just 34.1 percent on them.
So far this year, Hawks foes aren’t settling quite as much (24.0 3FGAs per game, 16th in NBA), but are getting better looks (36.8 3FG%, 5th-most in NBA). Rather than being mesmerized by Drummond’s prodigious play in the post, improving the perimeter defense would make things easier on the Hawks tonight. Hawks point guards and roving wings can minimize the need for the bigs to vacate the paint (and Drummond) to help.
A third-straight victory over Atlanta, a fourth consecutive victory overall, a fourth-straight road win to even up their away-game record, and a possible vault up to second in the East. All of that would suffice as quality gifts for the Detroit Pistons as they head into the Christmas Day break. But don’t bother wrapping anything, Atlanta. For Stan Van Gundy, Christmas already came a couple days early.
Merry Christmas to you and yours, and Happy Holidays!
Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3
