CLEVELAND – J.B. Bickerstaff is riding with Jalen Duren until the end. When that end comes for the Detroit Pistons depends, in part, on if Duren can hold up his end of the gamble.
This has been a rough postseason for Duren, who hasn’t resembled the All-Star version of himself that dominated the regular season. He’s fumbling passes that typically are automatic. His defensive motor has run more cold than hot. His rebounding, long a strength of his game, has been inconsistent.
The 22-year-old finished the Pistons’ 112-103 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday May 11, with eight points, two rebounds, two steals, four turnovers and five fouls. His play was one of many issues plaguing the Pistons in the Game 4 defeat, which tied the Eastern Conference semifinals, 2-2.
He’s vowing to figure it out.
“I’ve just gotta be better, man,” Duren said in the locker room after Game 4. “I have no excuses. I’m my biggest critic. I know what I’ve gotta do to be able to contribute to our team and our success, and I’m staying on myself about doing that no matter what the case may be. I’ve got great teammates, a great coaching staff. I know that as a group we’re going to come back stronger, I have no doubt about it.”
It was a terrific regular season for Duren, who finished second in Most Improved Player voting after averaging 19.5 points and 10.5 rebounds per game. He emerged as the second-most prominent player on a 60-win Pistons team that easily clinched the Eastern Conference’s top seed.
The playoffs have been a different story entirely. He’s averaging 10.2 points and 8.5 rebounds over 11 games. There have been flashes of the old Duren – such as his 15 point, 15-rebound effort in a Game 7 first-round win over the Orlando Magic earlier this month. He followed that with 11 points, 12 rebounds and four assists to open this series against the Cavaliers.
Defensively, he was good at the point of attack and met James Harden as he came off of screens. That effort has disappeared in Games 3 and 4. And yet, Bickerstaff has continued to close games with Duren instead of Paul Reed, who was Detroit’s best big both Monday and in Saturday’s Game 3 loss.
It’s the purest expression of Bickerstaff’s coaching philosophy, and also reveals the franchise’s priorities in the midst of their deepest playoff run in nearly 20 years. Duren is one of the franchise’s core building blocks and is on the cusp of a potential pay raise, as he’ll enter restricted free agency this offseason.
The Pistons will give him every opportunity to meet the moment in the playoffs.
It may be hurting them in the short term. But long term, they want Duren to be dependable in the playoffs. So Bickerstaff will continue trusting that the 22-year-old can get back to being himself, despite his recent struggles. And if it costs them a trip to the Eastern finals, it’s another data point they’ll take into the summer.
“We’re going to be here for a while, right?” Bickerstaff said after a May 6 practice. “And this group is going to be together for a while. So we have to do what’s best for this group in total and not just react to our emotions in the moment. Being here, working with Trajan [Langdon, Pistons president of basketball operations] and Tom [Gores, team owner], they’ve afforded me the ability to be able to do that and see the game that way where you don’t feel like you have to win or lose every possession or your job’s on the line.”
It wasn’t all Duren all the time, however, as Monday was the second straight game – and third in these playoffs – that Bickerstaff turned to Paul Reed over Duren in a crucial moment. Reed checked in for Duren at the 9:40 mark of the third quarter, in the midst of a 24-0 Cavaliers run that virtually put the game out of reach. It was Reed who finally snapped the run midway through the period with a dunk. He finished with 13 points in 13 minutes of action.
Duren came back in for him with 10:28 remaining in the fourth, and stayed in until Bickerstaff waved the white flag, down 16 with under three minutes to play.
“You’ve gotta give guys confidence, you’ve gotta give them belief,” Bickerstaff said of his decision to stick with Duren in the fourth. “He’s accomplished a lot for us, he’s done a lot of things. I still believe that nothing is just given, things still need to be earned. That’s why P Reed got the minutes, he earned them, I thought he deserved them. And then we give JD a chance to go back out there and do the things we know he’s capable of.
“You don’t just give up on guys when they’re having a hard time and that’s why our guys genuinely care for one another, they support one another and we’ll fight through it and figure it out together.”
Bickerstaff emphasized he wants Duren to focus on the aspects of the game he’s best at.
“The things that you can control you’ve gotta take care of,” he said. “Physically, he can dominate a game, whether it’s rebounding, whether it’s defending, whether it’s running the floor. Put your emphasis and focus on those things and the rest of the game will come to you.”
The playoffs have served as a reminder that despite the Pistons’ success this season, they are still a young team figuring out postseason basketball on the fly. Before dropping Games 3 and 4, they won five games in a row to come back from a 3-1 deficit against the Magic and build a 2-0 lead over the Cavaliers.
Now they head back home for Game 5, with the series on the line. Duren understands that their hopes rest on his broad shoulders. There’s still time for him to put his uneven start behind him.
“Every game is like a lesson,” he said. “We’re all learning, we’re all growing, we’re all even through losses, we’re learning where we need to go and what we need to get better at. Honestly, we’d rather learn lessons while winning. We’re going to grow. We’re going to grow from it.
“This is a team that’s been through adversity. This is a team that has seen the bottom and has fought through it. Like I said before, I have no doubt in my mind we’re going to come out and be ourselves.”
Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him on X and/or Bluesky.
Next up: Game 5
Matchup: 1-seed Pistons (2-2) vs. 4-seed Cleveland (2-2); NBA playoffs Eastern Conference semifinals Game 5.
Tipoff: 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 11; Little Caesars Arena, Detroit.
TV/radio: ESPN; WWJ-AM (950).
At stake: The winner of this best-of-seven series advances to the Eastern Conference finals to face the 3-seed New York Knicks for a spot in the NBA Finals.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pistons approach vs Cavaliers steady despite Jalen Duren playoff woes
Reporting by Omari Sankofa II, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
