No matter how trip plays out, Pistons' psyche unlikely to be dented
Wild, Wild West
by Keith Langlois

In response to the dozens of daily e-mails I get, and to the endless stream of live chat questions that come in during Pistons games, before we launch into today’s blog topic – trying to put the brutal Western road swing the Pistons face this week into perspective – a little ditty about the health of the Pistons:
Rip and Tay are day to day.

When they’ll play, who can say?

OK … On with the blog …

The current poll on Pistons.com asks fans how the Pistons will fare on their sadistic four-game Western Conference road swing – their annual Circus Trip, when the lions and monkeys take over The Palace – and, as of midday Monday, 2-2 was the runaway leader, garnering 44 percent of the vote, with fans close to equally divided between 1-3 (22 percent) and 3-1 (19 percent) and 4-0 (10 percent) getting twice as much support as 0-4 (5 percent).

If the Pistons come home from this trip 2-2, the NBA should grant them permission to print playoff tickets immediately.

Have the Pistons ever had a Western road trip this tough? It starts with a back-to-back against the Lakers and Portland and ends with another back-to-back against Utah and Phoenix.

Those four teams are a combined 28-14 and even that doesn’t do their potency justice. Of those 42 games, 25 have been on the road. Utah is 4-6, but nobody thinks the Jazz – winners of eight straight against the Pistons, and six straight in Utah – aren’t a playoff team, and they saw Deron Williams leave them to return home for a family medical emergency on their recent Eastern swing, so they’ll be whole by the time the Pistons roll into Salt Lake City.

Further – as if we needed a further to grasp the gravity – the Pistons will play Portland and Phoenix on the second night of back-to-backs with those teams having been off the night before. That will make three times in a week they faced that ultimate scheduling disadvantage, having played Dallas on Sunday after traveling from Washington on Saturday while the Mavs were already in town with their feet up.

The Pistons went 3-1 last November on this trip with a veteran team – but the first two wins came against Sacramento and Golden State. Oh, for a Sacramento or a Golden State – or even swapping out the Lakers for the Clippers – on this trip.

The Pistons make two weeklong Western swings every season, one in November and the other usually in late February or early March. This year’s second Western swing is much like this one in setup – two sets of back-to-backs. It opens with Sacramento and the LA Clippers and closes with Denver and Golden State. Aside from the inconvenience of leaving California only to have to return after flying halfway back across the country to play in Denver, how much more appealing would that trip look now to a team still playing without Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince?

The answer: Infinitely more.

While I admire the optimism of the 10 percent who voted for a 4-0 trip, the dire reality is that it’s far more likely the Pistons go 0-4 on this trip and come home to face Cleveland – thanks again, Mr. Schedule Maker – with a 5-9 record than a 9-5 mark.

But you know what? They’ll be the same team as the one that could have swept a Sacramento-Clippers-Denver-Golden State series. The schedule evens out when it’s all said and done.

(Well, almost. There is a slight imbalance to schedules. Everybody plays everybody else from the other conference twice – once home, once away – but within your own conference, there are four teams, two from each of the other two divisions, that you play three times while playing the other 10 teams within the conference four times apiece. Two of the four teams the Pistons only get to play three times? Charlotte and New Jersey, teams with a combined 3-16 record.)

I’m not conceding four losses this week, by the way, because if John Kuester’s Pistons have shown us anything about themselves through 10 games, it’s that they concede nothing. They beat Orlando the day they learned Prince was down with a bad back, they came from way back on the road against both Orlando and Toronto to give themselves a chance to win twice, and they won three straight last week including a comeback win at Washington on Saturday.

What I’m suggesting is that coming home with a 5-9 record isn’t very likely to do anything to damage this team’s psyche. Losing doesn’t sit well with them, a notion reinforced by the postgame mood Sunday, when they felt they let Dallas get away with one, even though Ben Gordon shot 1 of 16 and Rodney Stuckey sat out the last six minutes with a calf cramp after giving them 28 points through three quarters.

But losing doesn’t seem as likely to beat this team down as it did last year’s, one that had perhaps become as jaded by success as their fan base. When the recognition that last year’s Pistons weren’t likely to be able to compete at a championship level struck them, their competitive spirit seemed to be sapped.

This year’s Pistons? They have no idea where this ride is going to take them, but they’re boundlessly curious to find out and having a blast getting there. There is a palpable sense of freshness and renewal around the team, an infectious enthusiasm that starts with Kuester and is conducted by the young veterans like Will Bynum and Rodney Stuckey and Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva.

Sprinkle a healthy Prince and Hamilton back into the mix, let the schedule start to even out, reap the benefits of Gordon and Villanueva growing more comfortable in taking ownership of their new team, see the rookies start to lose some of that awe factor, and the wins that might come grudgingly over the next week will start to pile up if Kuester maintains the deft touch handling this team’s psyche he’s exhibited to date.

So it would be great to scratch out two or three wins on this daunting Western swing, but coming back 5-9 – all things considered – isn’t going to wind up being the lens through which their season is ultimately viewed.

Pistons head out for tough West Coast swing
By Chris Iott
November 16, 2009, 8:45PM

AUBURN HILLS -- Detroit Pistons coach John Kuester insists he takes it one game at a time.

But his players know exactly what they are in for in the coming days.

"Whoever did that schedule, man," guard Rodney Stuckey said, shaking his head and smiling, "Brutal, right? All playoff teams. It's going to be a challenge for us."

That challenge starts Tuesday night, when the Pistons face Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers in the opener of a four-game West Coast swing.

The trip continues Wednesday in Portland before Detroit gets a day off Thursday. Then, the Pistons will play another set of back-to-back games Saturday and Sunday against Utah and Phoenix.

The four teams went a combined 213-115 last season and each made the playoffs, while the Lakers went on to win the NBA title.

They were a combined 28-14 this season heading into Monday night's action.

The trip is bookended by home games against Dallas (a 95-90 loss Sunday) and Cleveland (Nov. 25), which means this likely is the toughest stretch of the season for Detroit.

Kuester was in no mood to discuss the road trip Sunday before or after the loss to Dallas.

"I'm just worried about L.A.," he said. "The next game after that -- who do we play after them?"

A reporter reminded him it was Portland.

"OK," he said. "We're going to play L.A. next. That's all I know."

Kuester is consistent in the message his team takes things one game at a time.

"You've got to live the moment," he said. "The moment is who you're playing the next day. Of course, you know what's going on in the rest of your schedule, but you have to understand what is at task right now."

The Pistons head west with confidence despite the loss to Dallas. Playing most of the season without injured starters Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince, the Pistons are 5-5 and have shown a knack for staying in games.

They had won three in a row heading into the Dallas game, including a rout of Charlotte at home and a close road win against Washington.

The Pistons also had a chance to tie the game against Dallas -- another Western Conference playoff team -- in the waning seconds, even though Ben Gordon had a 1-for-16 shooting night and Stuckey left the game with cramps.

"I think we're getting better and better every game, and if we just focus on the little things, we'll be fine," guard Will Bynum said. "We've come a long way since the beginning of the season."

They still have a ways to go, and this trip could help shape this season. Will it be a time of continued growth or a major bump in the road?

"It's going to be really challenging," Gordon said. "We've got the Lakers, arguably the best team in the league, the defending champs. Then, we've got Portland and Utah and Phoenix.

"Every game out there, it's going to be important that we bring our 'A' games right from the start, because those teams are all tough."