AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Before the Detroit Pistons took on the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night here at The Palace, a reporter tried to soften the blow of a question about Detroit’s five-game losing streak by starting off a query to Pistons impresario Stan Van Gundy pointing out that his team has been going through some “ups and downs” lately.
Van Gundy, though, was having none of it.
“We haven’t had any ups recently,” he said flatly.
That trend at least briefly changed Monday, with LeBron James sitting out the day after beating the Golden State Warriors on Christmas day, the Pistons cruised to a comfortable win and snapped that five-game skid and improved to 15-18. But one victory over a LeBron-less Cavaliers team wasn’t about to dramatically change the famously irascible coach’s outlook on his team.
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“I mean, it’s always a relief when you’re breaking a losing streak, so that part’s good,” he said. “But now we’ve got to gain some consistency and go the other way. You hope it’s not a one-game thing and you break it … hopefully we’re building on something.”
It turned out Van Gundy was right to be pessimistic, given the Pistons followed up Monday’s win by getting crushed at home by the Milwaukee Bucks, losing 119-94 to fall into a tie for 11th in the Eastern Conference.
In reality, though, a bumpy start was expected after starting point guard Reggie Jackson went down with knee tendinitis during the middle of training camp back in October, ruling him out for six weeks. And, in many ways, Detroit’s slow start is emblematic of the slow, methodical rebuild the team has undergone since Van Gundy took over as coach and president back in 2014.
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When he and general manager Jeff Bower arrived on the job, they had essentially two pieces worth building around: Andre Drummond, the massive center taken with the No. 9 pick in 2012; and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, an excellent defensive guard taken at No. 8 the following year.
Since then, Detroit has shrewdly made a series of deals to restock the roster with intriguing pieces. The Pistons grabbed Jackson from the Oklahoma City Thunder at the 2015 trade deadline, landed Marcus Morris from the Phoenix Suns that summer and then Tobias Harris from the Orlando Magic at last season’s trade deadline for a series of spare parts — all deals Detroit clearly came out on top of. Then they signed Ish Smith and Jon Leuer to shore up weak spots on the bench this summer before giving Drummond a five-year max contract to reinforce his place as the centerpiece of the franchise on the heels of leading the Pistons to their first playoff appearance since 2009.
Still, after going .500 while Jackson missed the opening six weeks, the thought was Detroit would start to see an uptick once he returned to the court. Instead, it’s clearly — and understandably — taken him some time to get back up to speed while having to use regular season games over the past few weeks as his own personal training camp.
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“When I came back, I think I had one practice in general, so I didn’t have a lot of time to really get footing with my teammates and myself and know where I was at,” said Jackson, who had 13 points and six assists — but also six turnovers — Monday night against Cleveland. “So these games have been my practice and I’m just trying to get better daily.”
At times, it’s been an awkward adjustment. Stanley Johnson, the No. 8 pick in the 2015 draft, has been in and out of Van Gundy’s doghouse, though he has gotten more consistent minutes of late. Van Gundy recently tinkered with the starting lineup, inserting Leuer for Harris to give the Pistons a different look — one that’s mostly looked promising so far, as its allowed Detroit to better balance its roster and allow Harris, a more versatile all-around scorer than Leuer, to anchor the second unit.
The rockiest times, however, came recently. After a loss to Indiana on Dec. 17, the Pistons held a 45-minute closed door team meeting. They then proceeded to get blown out in Chicago two nights later, with Jackson looking at times like he was going out of his way to pass up shots — leading to an epic Van Gundy rant afterward.
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“Again, [we] started the third quarter and, two possessions each way, we’re just walking around,” he said afterward. “I wasn’t going to keep watching that. It was not the way to start.”
So what is it like to be on the receiving end of such a rant?
“A lot of yelling,” said Jackson with a smile Monday, comparing it being disciplined by your parents when you’re growing up. “We knew what it was about. It’s a lot of yelling. Sometimes you find a way to tune little words out, but you know what the gist of the message is: just get back on track and find a way to get stops. That’s really what he’s going to preach all time, mostly just get defensive stops and then try to find a good shot.
“You just build up a tolerance for it. You just build a tolerance to it. You know it’s coming, so you kind of know what the message is going to be for the most part. You find a way to deal with it, you find a way to fire yourself up, fire the guys up and go out there and do what needs to be done so coach hopefully doesn’t have a heart attack on the sidelines.”
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But, despite Van Gundy’s frustrations, hope is not lost in Detroit — or just about anywhere in the East, for that matter. While Cleveland is obviously the class of the conference, with Toronto and Boston settling into second and third, as expected, spots 4-8 in the playoff picture are more than available. In fact, the Pistons are only 2 1/2 games behind the fifth place New York Knicks in the East despite being tied with the Orlando Magic for 11th in the conference.
Just don’t tell that to Van Gundy.
“I mean, it certainly gives you hope,” Van Gundy said of the muddled East playoff picture, “but it doesn’t make me feel any better, no.
“We need to get back to playing better.”
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