Andre Drummond gives young fan seat on Pistons bench during game
Timing can be everything in life, and there are few substitutes for being in the right place at the right time. It’s a lesson worth learning early on, and it’s one that a young Detroit Pistons fan learned during Sunday’s game against the Toronto Raptors when a fourth-quarter stroll past the Pistons bench turned into a seat on said bench, courtesy of All-Star center Andre Drummond:
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As the commentators note, this is the sort of thing that can happen when the outcome of a game isn’t exactly in doubt. With Kyle Lowry resting after scoring a career-high 43 points in 43 minutes to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday, Stan Van Gundy’s crew took the fight straight to the Raps, leading for almost the entirety of the second half, by 17 points after three quarters and by as many as 26 in the fourth en route to a 114-101 win behind blistering 57.7 percent shooting as a team and balanced scoring from its starting five, helmed by point guard Reggie Jackson (19 points, eight assists) and Drummond (15 points, 18 rebounds).
Drummond didn’t play at all in the fourth and Jackson checked out with 7:10 left for the Pistons, who have now won four straight after a five-game skid to get back above .500 to 31-29, putting them even record-wise with the seventh-seeded Charlotte Hornets and eighth-seeded Chicago Bulls, but below them in the playoff race due to tiebreakers. With that extra time on their hands, Drummond and Jackson could afford to ease up a bit, enjoy the fruits of your labor and maybe give a passing tyke the thrill of a lifetime, with the big man scooping the young man up while the game was still in progress and plopping him onto a seat on an NBA bench for a spell. That’s what you might call a pretty significant seat upgrade, and a pretty cool move by Detroit’s gentle giant of a center.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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