Opinion: Detroit Pistons are getting louder by the game. It's time to start listening.
That’s seven in a row if you’re counting, and you should be; not that anyone is trying to lecture here.
Oh, to heck with it. It’s time to start paying attention to the basketball team in this city. They’ve earned more than a side glance on social media.
Because this is the sweet spot, the good stuff, the turnaround stuff, the surprising stuff, before real expectation sets in, before every game becomes a referendum on the head coach or the star player or the front office.
That's how it is when an NBA team turns into a contender, and every win and loss is parsed and squeezed and debated. Perhaps you’ve forgotten. I don’t blame you.
It’s been a while. Heck, it’s never been, not really, not in the era of social media and instant video, not in the hot-take cesspool of what’s left of the networks.
That’s how long it’s been since the Detroit Pistons were contenders: Twitter wasn’t a thing, let alone X.
No doubt the Pistons would welcome such scrutiny, as exhausting as it can be. To get there, they’ll have to do more than win seven in a row and triple their win total from one season to the next, which is what they are on pace to do after beating the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday night, 106-97.
The 32-26 record is nice, no question, and impressive in its context. (The historic losing streak last year and all that.) But now come a couple of big boys.
First the Boston Celtics, then the Denver Nuggets, the teams that won the last two NBA championships, one with the best starting five in the league, one with the best player in the league. Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff, for one, is excited.
The upcoming schedule, he said, offers “more challenge and opportunity for growth for us. That’s the mindset that we’re approaching every game with. We are still working our way to becoming the team that we want to be finally.”
They got more work done Monday night against Los Angeles. Yes, the Clippers were without Kawhi Leonard and Norman Powell. But they’ve been a playoff team without Leonard. (Besides, the Pistons are without Jaden Ivey.)
In this league, a full roster is a luxury. Good teams have to find ways to keep it moving. Or find ways to get moving, like the Pistons did against the Clippers, despite playing in Atlanta the night before, despite three games in four nights.
Yeah, yeah, every team deals with similar stretches. Dealing with these stretches, though, is critical, and something the Pistons are learning how to do.
They were sluggish at first. Shots weren’t falling. And the Clippers, coached by one of the best in the league in Ty Lue, wrestled the game into the mud.
“Lots of holding and grabbing,” said Cade Cunningham, who scored 30-plus for the second night in a row.
He wasn’t complaining, though, and if you ask him – and ask his teammates, for that matter – they'll tell you they enjoyed the playoff-style ball more Monday night than the All-Star-style ball Sunday in Atlanta, where the Pistons beat the Hawks, 148-143 ... in regulation.
“This is the type of game we like,” Cunningham said of the slugfest against the Clippers.
No wonder he dove on the floor for a loose ball in the third quarter, his team down by three.
“I knew we needed that possession,” he said. “We preach grit and all of that stuff. I’m trying to lead the way. We've got a lot of guys that scrap and grind. That was my opportunity to pay it back.”
Cunningham is making his all-NBA case by the night it seems. But then, he’s got a group making it easier to make that case. The veterans, of course – Tobias Harris, Malik Beasley, Tim Hardaway Jr. And the young guys, who keep doing things that make you wonder where this is going this season, let alone the next few.
There is Ausar Thompson, a “defense all by himself,” Cunningham noted. And Jalen Duren, who is blossoming alongside Cunningham and Thompson.
The Clippers were the toughest team the Pistons have faced since the All-Star break; San Antonio and Atlanta were the first two. That's a good setup for the level that’s about to arrive.
“When you (play) against the better teams in the league it gives you a baseline of where you stand, where you can improve, and what you do well,” Bickerstaff said.
A split would be telling. Whether the games are competitive would be even more so.
This is where the Pistons are now. This is what they’ve earned: the chance to be gauged off a couple of regular season games in late February, with more than pride at stake.
Detroit is two games behind the Indiana Pacers and Milwaukee Bucks in the loss column, the holders of the fifth and fourth seeds respectively. That’s crazy to consider.
But here they are. Winners of seven in a row. Desperate but not panicked. To prove themselves. To show this is real and getting more real by the week.
“We still feel like we have to earn the leagues’ respect,” Cunningham said. “So, every night you have to come with it. I think that’s something we’ve gotten better and better at as the season has gone on.”
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