Close Call: Injured Players Return in Tough Loss

Pistons start slow with everybody back, finish fast, come up short
Close Call
by Keith Langlois

Everybody understood it would take some time – time to get their legs and wind back, time to hone their timing, time for all the parts that filled the vacuum in the absence of stars to acclimate themselves to altered roles.

Maybe it won’t take as much time as they feared and maybe it won’t be as fast as they hoped, but the difference in the Pistons’ first-half and second-half performances against Toronto at least gives them an optimistic measuring stick. After falling behind by 20 in the second quarter and trailing by 19 at halftime, the Pistons crept within a point midway through the fourth quarter before losing 102-95 to the Raptors.

It was their seventh straight loss, yet the mood was palpably brighter than it was following their sixth straight loss four days earlier to the same Toronto team at The Palace, a 30-point shellacking that saw the Pistons shoot under 30 percent and tie the franchise record for fewest points at 64.

“Our guys battled back and worked real hard in the second half,” John Kuester said. “We became more aggressive. … It’ll take some time, but we’ll get there. All of our guys are getting acclimated to them again, but it was refreshing to watch them play and see how they compete. We’re going to be fine.”

Predictably enough, the returning players didn’t shoot the basketball with their usual efficiency and that, ultimately, was the difference between the two teams.

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“Just missed shots,” said Gordon, who was moving much more assertively than he did when he returned too soon from his Nov. 25 sprained ankle, giving it a go in three early December games before shutting it down after a 12-minute outing against Washington on Dec. 6. “Guys like Tayshaun, Rip and myself, we all have a good enough feel for the game. … It’s just getting your rhythm back, getting your stroke back, especially for guys like myself and Rip. We’re shooters. We rely on rhythm and getting a nice little flow.”

The swing moment of the game came just past the midway point of the fourth quarter when the Pistons had cut the lead to one. Rodney Stuckey (14 points, eight boards, five assists) missed a baseline jumper that Jonas Jerebko hustled down. The extra possession produced a wing 3-pointer for Gordon that would have put the Pistons ahead by two. It rimmed out, and on Toronto’s ensuing possession, Jerebko was nailed for his sixth foul on a three-point play for Andrea Bargnani that looked more like a charge, Bargnani knocking Jerebko back with an elbow to the chest.

Jerebko, who had started the past 26 games at small forward, got the start at power forward and it was he who ignited the third-quarter rally with 10 points, finishing with 14 points and seven boards, six of them offensive.

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Jerebko’s defensive ability figures to keep him on the floor every bit as much as his hustle, especially while the Pistons are regaining their equilibrium. It’s easy to point to the shooting numbers of Hamilton and Gordon as evidence of the offensive struggles, but defense requires the same degree of cohesion and the Pistons saw the same sort of second-half turnaround defensively as they did offensively.

The Raptors shot 62 percent in scoring 60 first-half points, but fell to 41 percent and 42 points in the second half.

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Hey, that’s progress. The Pistons were miles away from being the team they thought they could be a few days ago, when their spirit appeared bent if not broken, but they came back from Toronto just yards away. With their team intact and the Eastern Conference playoff contenders doing them a great favor by not running away even as their roster was depleted, the Pistons come home for the final two games of 2009 against teams similarly looking to make up ground – the Knicks and Bulls – feeling suddenly and dramatically reinforced.

TEAM COLORS
The story of the game in Pistons red, white and blue

– Chris Bosh might be a cut below the true MVP candidates, but he’s putting up MVP numbers, at least, and his 25 points and 16 rebounds gave Toronto a huge leg up on the Pistons. Bosh did the great bulk of his damage in the first half when the Raptors were building a 20-point lead, putting up 19 and nine.

BLUE COLLAR – Jonas Jerebko might have spent almost the entire preseason playing power forward, but he hasn’t practiced or played at that spot since Tayshaun Prince went down three games into the season and Jerebko replaced him at small forward. Yet he took to the switch quickly and it was Jerebko who fueled the comeback that saw the Pistons cut a 19-point halftime deficit to one. Jerebko hit two triples, ran the floor and chased down loose balls in a 10-point third quarter. He finished with 14 points, seven boards (six offensive) and two steals. The Pistons felt the loss when he fouled out with about five minutes to go on a call that could have gone the other way.

RED FLAG – The Pistons might have had everybody in uniform for the first time all season, but Charlie Villanueva is still something considerably less than 100 percent as he struggles with the painful foot injury, plantar fasciitis. Villanueva shot 2 of 7 in 19 minutes, finishing with eight points and two rebounds. His four turnovers – the Pistons only had 10 – might have been the most telling indicator of his tentativeness.
Nobody thought it would be as easy as getting all their injured players back in uniform, even if the returns dramatically happened to coincide – as they did Sunday, when Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Ben Gordon all came back to the Pistons.