Pistons hope players-only meeting helps team stop their stumbling
Stan Van Gundy said their offensive struggles are carrying over to the defensive end
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3 min read
The Detroit Pistons lost by 18 points to the Philadelphia 76ers a week ago, and that apparently wasn't enough of a wake-up call. With a 105-90 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Saturday, they've now lost five of eight games since Reggie Jackson's return to the lineup while scoring just 101.3 points per 100 possessions, which ranks 25th in the league. Worse, coach Stan Van Gundy said Saturday that they were letting their offensive struggles carry over to the defensive end.
Oh, and they had a players-only meeting.
From the Detroit Free Press' Vince Ellis:
The meeting was the idea of center Aron Baynes, but Marcus Morris did most of the talking.
And he challenged his teammates.
"I did a lot of the talking, I said at the end of the meeting that we have to make a decision," Morris said. "Everybody go home tonight and decide on what you want to do. Do you want to be a winning team or do you want to continue to get embarrassed? Are you going to play for the next man beside you or are you going to play for yourself?"
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"Our offensive frustration is affecting us at the defensive end and we're losing heart a little bit," Van Gundy said. "That's concerning. The offense has not been moving the way it should. The ball is not moving. I got to look at play calls and the whole thing.
"We went through stretches where Reggie (Jackson) made some plays in the third quarter and we were scoring, but again, what happens is, we're scoring, but we're trading baskets. Part of it is, we got guys upset they're not touching the ball and everything else so they're not as engaged in the game on the defensive end of the floor."
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"If you have a guy wide open, he has to get the ball. It builds guys' confidence. It makes the game funner. That's just how it is. Of course some dudes are going to get more shots than other dudes. That's how the game goes," Morris said. "Guys are not going to respond well when they don't get the ball when they're open. That's just basketball. That's just the right way. The Spurs, Golden State, Cleveland, the top tier teams play the right way. You never win if you don't play the right way. That's just the bottom line."
Van Gundy said that the Pistons are "not in a good place right now," and that seems obvious. The Pacers are not exactly an offensive juggernaut, and Detroit lost to the Washington Wizards on Friday mostly because the Pistons allowed 38 points in the second quarter.
The Pistons were able to survive without Jackson, their primary playmaker, because they had the league's fifth-best defensive rating when he was sidelined. His return was supposed to make everything easier -- if they could sustain that defense and become a top-10 team on offense, then they'd be an upper-echelon team in the East. Instead, they've regressed on both ends of the court and are now searching for answers.
It's not Jackson's fault that his teammates haven't adjusted to his presence well enough, and Detroit needs to get out of this rut as a team. When Jackson is on the floor, Van Gundy likes to run a ton of high pick-and-rolls with him and Andre Drummond. That is a change from the more diversified set of play calls that he was forced to use without Jackson, but there's no reason the Pistons can't create ball movement out of those plays and there's no excuse for letting a lack of touches affect defensive effort.
At 14-15, Detroit is now tied with the Atlanta Hawks for ninth in the East, half a game back of the Chicago Bulls. It's not time to panic, but a players-only meeting sounds about right. This team has the talent to be better than this, and it badly needs wins against Chicago and Memphis on Monday and Wednesday -- after those games, the Pistons face Golden State and Cleveland in succession. Yikes.
