http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/review_feb09.htmlMixed Signals
Editor’s note: Pistons.com looks back at the 2008-09 Detroit Pistons season with a month-by-month review, starting with training camp and concluding with the Eastern Conference playoffs. Part V: February. Even after wobbling out of January, having lost eight of their last 11 games, the Pistons had a bounce in their step as February arrived. The All-Star break was less than two weeks away, the team was back at full strength, the Rip Hamilton experiment off the bench was showing signs of progress and the Cleveland Cavaliers were coming to town to tip off the month in a Super Bowl Sunday nationally televised matinee. Pretty good game, too. Until the fourth quarter rolled around. The Pistons led by eight after three and had held Cleveland to 58 points in the process. But the Cavs made up the deficit in the opening few minutes of the fourth quarter – with LeBron James sitting on the bench, no less – and outscored the Pistons 32-14 in the final period. That made the Pistons 1-8 on Sundays and 24-13 on every other day of the week. It was a depressing loss that gave the Pistons a glimpse of the other side of the street. They lost in the same way they’d won for much of the past six seasons, when they won 50-plus games each year and advanced at least to the conference finals – by staying close for three quarters and dominating when it mattered. It was also the first ominous sign that Rodney Stuckey was in a funk. A month after he’d scored 40 and 38 points within a span of 10 days, Stuckey managed just six on 2 of 9 shooting against the Cavs. He bounced back nicely in the next game, a 93-90 win over Miami when he hit a clutch banker in Dwyane Wade’s face late and finished with 18 points, six assists and six rebounds. But then he went to Milwaukee and shot 1 of 10 while another second-year point guard, Ramon Sessions, was going for 44 points and 12 assists. The Pistons needed overtime to win that game, then came home less than 24 hours later and got spanked by Phoenix – another Sunday loss – on a night Steve Nash handed out 21 assists.
The losing streak would reach three games heading into the All-Star break when the Pistons lost a back-to-back set at Chicago and back home against Atlanta on getaway night. The Chicago loss was especially haunting. Ahead by 15 in the fourth quarter, the Pistons got put on their heels as Chicago pressed on defense and attacked them relentlessly on offense. The Bulls – who came into the night six games behind the Pistons in the standings – scored 36 in the fourth quarter and turned that 15-point deficit into a five-point win. Stuckey’s troubles continued in the Atlanta loss as he scored 12 points but, more tellingly, had just one assist and one rebound. “Over the last week to 10 days, he looked a little physically worn,” Joe Dumars said at the break. “Especially the last couple of games, Chicago and then especially Atlanta. What happens is when you’re a young guy and you’re playing heavy minutes for the first time, when you get closer to the All-Star break, mentally you start really reaching for that because you know your body needs (it), you need it, mentally.” But the break was an elixir for no one. That three-game losing streak the Pistons dragged into the All-Star break quickly became the longest the franchise had known in 14 years. Milwaukee won at The Palace minus three starters with Stuckey scoring three points before fouling out. But the game was more notable for the fact that Michael Curry had decided to shake up the starting lineup again. He’d tried both Amir Johnson and Kwame Brown as starters, hoping to bring Antonio McDyess off the bench so to always have one of his two veteran big men – McDyess or Rasheed Wallace – on the court for their shot-making ability. But with nobody seizing the starting opportunity, Curry re-inserted McDyess into the starting unit to try to avoid the agonizing starts that had been plaguing them. But the sputtering continued. With Stuckey held to two in a four-point loss to San Antonio, the losing streak reached five. The season’s nadir came in their next time out, when they went to Cleveland for a Sunday night ESPN game and fell 36 points behind in the first half.
That was also the start of a five-game road trip that easily appeared to be the most daunting of their season. After Cleveland, the Pistons would visit four more certain playoff teams – Miami, New Orleans, Orlando and Boston. There didn’t appear to be much hope that the Pistons wouldn’t own a 10-game losing streak by the time they got back to The Palace the following week for what was shaping up as a bittersweet moment – Chauncey Billups’ return to The Palace. Sure enough, the Pistons lost at Miami the next time out with Wade playing magnificently, scoring 31 points and setting a career high with 16 assists. Allen Iverson led the Pistons with 22, but took a hard spill in the second half and got up holding his back. The loss left the Pistons somewhere they hadn’t been this late in the season since the first year Dumars sat in the president’s seat: below .500 at 27-28. Iverson gave it a go in New Orleans the next night, but lasted just eight minutes before the Pistons shut him down. Almost immediately, the Pistons showed signs of life they hadn’t exhibited in weeks, digging out from an early 11-point deficit but losing by three on a night the Hornets grabbed 17 offensive rebounds and got big production from Chris Paul (20 points, 13 assists), David West (30 points, 10 boards) and Tyson Chandler (17 rebounds). Nobody knew how long Iverson might be out – back injuries are notoriously unpredictable – but the return of Hamilton to the starting lineup seemed to restore something of the Pistons’ karma. Still, it was tough feeling too good about themselves as they took an eight-game losing streak into a weekend set at Orlando and Boston, which were a combined 61 games over .500. But the Pistons closed out February with one of their most complete games of the season, playing a sublime second half in outscoring Orlando 50-34 to win by eight as Hamilton scored 31, Stuckey broke out with 22, Tayshaun Prince added 17 and Wallace and McDyess combined for 23 rebounds and did their usual commendable job limiting the damage inflicted by Orlando’s Dwight Howard. “This was a big game,” Hamilton said. “They had only lost six games at home. Guys got in their comfort zone and just tried to play basketball.” Their comfort zone – that’s a place the Pistons had rarely visited all season. But as March dawned, there was again a renewal of optimism that the pieces were in place for a late-season run.
