Young Pistons don't wilt under playoff spotlight but can't pull out victory
CLEVELAND — Stan Van Gundy’s young Detroit Pistons team did exactly what he hoped it would do throughout much of Sunday’s 106-101 Game 1 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Pistons embraced their moment on the playoff stage. They showed mental toughness and hung tough against a team, and a player in LeBron James, who has ravaged lesser opponents over time.
The Pistons hit shots, made plays and showed the determination that helped launch them into the playoff spotlight.
They just didn’t win.
In the cutthroat world of playoff basketball, the players know that’s all that matters. But as they made their way out of Quicken Loans Arena on Sunday night, the Pistons were emboldened by the belief that they can play with anybody, even James and the big, bad Cavaliers.
“We feel good,” Pistons point guard Reggie Jackson said. “We feel good. The only thing better would be coming out with a win. We know this is Goliath. We welcome it. We like the challenge. I think we played well tonight, I don’t we played necessarily our best game. We’ll figure it out. It’s a 1-0 series. We for sure got another one on Wednesday. Come back and be ready to come out swinging.”
That’s exactly what the Pistons did Sunday.
They played with a swagger that most young teams don’t show in their first playoff game. Jackson is the outlier in the group in that he is the only starter who came into the series with playoff experience. Marcus Morris, Andre Drummond, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Tobias Harris all made their playoff debuts Sunday. The starting five got off to a fast start, shooting almost 62 percent from the field, and had an answer for the Cavs every time they punched back.
The Pistons’ flaw on Sunday didn’t come early in this game when jitters and nerves have tripped inexperienced teams over time. It came during the crucible of any playoff game, late in the fourth quarter when it was all on the line. The Pistons shot 38.1 percent from the field in the fourth quarter and couldn’t make enough defensive stops down the stretch.
For all the balance and unity the group showed during the day, they were reminded of one of the biggest discrepancies in the series throughout the game: Star power. The Cavs’ triple threat of Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving and James combined for 81 points, 24 rebounds and 18 assists. After it was over, while he wouldn’t go into specifics, Van Gundy tried to take the blame for his team’s demise.
“Our guys were out there playing like it was any other game, competing hard,” he said. “Like I said, I’m proud of the way they competed. I’m proud of the way they weathered the storms. When they went on runs our guys were able to stay poised and get back into it. Again, I just wish I had done things differently. Maybe we come out ahead.”
Van Gundy was frustrated but proud. He liked the way his team competed, and, like his players, he knows there is a lot for his group to build on heading into Game 2 on Wednesday night.
“We showed a lot of fight today,” Drummond said. “We showed a lot of fight today and we played hard. A couple mental mistakes down the stretch of the game that gave them the lead and we know what we need to do better for next game on Wednesday.”
For the Pistons to even the series Wednesday, Drummond is going to have to set an earlier tone that his teammates can follow. He was just 1-for-4 in the first 24 minutes, in part because his teammates were shooting it so well from the field. But the Pistons can’t be expected to go 10-for-16 from beyond the arc again, the way they did in the first half. The issue for the Pistons is that even if Drummond starts off stronger and put up more than the 13 points, 11 rebounds he did in Game 1, do they have an answer for James, Love and Irving when they get hot?
As Van Gundy and his players try to process that question in the coming days, they can take solace in the fact that it took everything the Cavs’ big three had to squeeze out this win. The Pistons didn’t wilt under the playoff spotlight Sunday, they thrived. The next step is being able to close out a playoff game after earning a seven-point fourth-quarter lead, as they did early in the final stanza.
The Pistons might not have fully believed they could win four games against the Cavs before this series began, but they do now. They didn’t succumb to the pressure, they took another step in their growing process.
“I saw a lot of what I expected to see out of this team,” Jackson said. “We don’t care who you put in front of us. We don’t care about the moment. We just want to play ball and be the best team. We want to get a win each and every night. We came out, did our best tonight, unfortunately it wasn’t enough … but I love this team. I love that we fear nobody. Experience is going to be our best teacher. We’re going to have some mistakes and they’re going to have some as well … we’re going to learn. We’re going to learn on the fly. And we’re going to continue to compete. We’re going to continue to get in your face. We’re not going to back down from anybody. Nobody on this team fears no man. We think we have a chance. We think we’re one of the better teams in the league and we really think we have a chance to try and show them we’re the better team in the series.”
