CLEVELAND – Now that they’re here in the second round, everyone around them is all in, and it’d be painful for the season to end.
A month ago, two months ago, certainly six months ago, this spot would feel good, the NBA playoff series losing streak over, and most would be giddy ahead of a Game 5, tied at 2, at Little Caesars Arena against a deeper, more experienced, perhaps more talented team.
The Detroit Pistons aren’t just holding their own; they’ve got a good chance to win this thing and get to the conference finals for the first time since 2008. Heady stuff. Surreal stuff. Joyful stuff.
And if they lose, well, baby steps and all, eh? Just remember, you’d have taken that not so long ago.
The Pistons might have, too. Not that they capped their goals at the Eastern Conference semifinals – the players didn’t, anyway.
But the front office and the coach? They’re more realistic. Have to be. Which explains why they’ve stuck with Jalen Duren, for one thing. They’ve got eyes beyond this season. They are building, so successfully lately that expectations have changed.
So, yes, a loss in Game 5 would likely mean a loss in Game 6 and a loss in this series, and that’ll stink after the season the Pistons just put forth, and the effort just put forth. Few things in sports are as edifying as a young team that makes unexpected noise.
President of basketball operations Trajan Langdon and coach J.B. Bickerstaff understand that this up-and-coming young team is ahead of schedule, and also, still up-and-coming.
They understand the core of this group won 14 games two years ago. They understand this is all new, every day of it, and that each rung brings another chance to wring data.
Fall down 3-1 to a No. 8 seed?
Toss it in the memory bank.
Climb from that abyss?
Download it to the server.
Jump out to a 2-0 lead over a team that has been at this postseason thing longer and whose roster has a couple of high-wattage guards desperate to change their playoff narratives?
Yeah, they aren’t rolling over and, in fact, will treat the next couple games as if you were trying to ruin their livelihood. So, you’d better be ready to meet that desperation.
The Pistons weren’t. That’s a data point, too.
“Some of the hardest lessons you learn are the most frustrating ones,” Bickerstaff said late Monday night from a cramped interview room in Rocket Arena. “But you learn from them and you grow.”
Great exposure now, better for future
The Pistons coach was a little more introspective than usual after the Game 4 loss, but then he knows he’s got a young team that is finding itself and needs patience and guidance as much as it needs a push.
He’d spent a decent amount of time during Game 4 barking and clapping at his players for their missed assignments and inconsistent focus, and also for their inability to meet the moment the Cavaliers created.
But now was a time for reflection, because there are more games to be played, and his youngsters have to forget (mostly) about what happened in Cleveland and bring more force for Game 5 back in Detroit.
[ Refs didn’t cost Pistons win. They did it themselves, and they know it ]
“This is a new environment for us, being in the second round, understanding what it takes to win at this level, in this round,” he said. “It’s the first time.”
Like?
“The difference of urgency that a team provides when they’re down 0-2 versus [the urgency] you [feel] when you’re up 2-0. I think we learned from the Orlando series what it’s like to be down and the urgency you have to play with. But now you’re on the other side of it. … These are great experiences for us. The best part about it is, it’s now a three-game series, and we’ve got two of them in Detroit.”
So here we go. The pivotal game is before us. And Detroit is the host. This will be a data point, too.
Or, as Cade Cunningham likes to say, another part of life to get exposed to.
“There’s a lot to learn from Game 4,” he said. “There’s things we didn’t see that tonight we got an opportunity to get exposed to.”
What were his takeaways?
After Cleveland’s 22-0 run to start the third quarter, “we never really caught our footing again. It was loud. We couldn’t get organized for a little bit … that’s the first time they really got loose on us this whole series.”
Cunningham struggled in Cleveland and struggled to handle the Cavaliers’ full-court pressure and half-court doubling. He turned the ball over three times at the end of Game 3 and never found footing throughout Game 4 (six assists to five turnovers).
“I’ve struggled against these things before and succeeded against these things before,” he said. “It’s about clearing my mind and being better as a point guard.”
That’s an opportunity as well. One he said he was excited about. Believe him.
Believe Bickerstaff, too. There is value in the journey. That helped the Pistons recover in the first round. Now they hope it’ll help them respond in the second round, which is where they find themselves for the first time in 18 years.
Not these players, of course, but the franchise whose name adorns the front of their jerseys. It has been a while, and most of these players are young, and while there is plenty of which to quibble with Bickerstaff, he is unassailable in this:
The hardest lessons can be the most frustrating lessons. The Pistons have a chance to recalibrate, recompute, show everyone what they’ve learned, and ease that frustration with a win tonight.
[ MUST WATCH: Make “The Pistons Pulse” your go-to Pistons podcast, listen available anywhere you listen to podcasts (Apple, Spotify) or watch live on YouTube. ]
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pistons bullied by Cavs: We’ll find out what they’re made of in Game 5
Reporting by Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
