The Detroit Pistons have lost three out of their last four games by 14 points or more and five out of their last eight overall, rendering them to below the .500 mark after a 105-90 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Saturday night.
Veteran forward Marcus Morris took the initiative to call a team meeting and address the situation at hand.
“I did a lot of the talking,” Morris said of the meeting, according to Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press. “I said at the end of the meeting that we have to make a decision. Everybody go home tonight and decide on what you want to do. Do you want to be a winning team or do you want to continue to get embarrassed? Are you going to play for the next man beside you or are you going to play for yourself?”
The Pistons' recent woes include an 18-point home loss to the bottom-dwelling Philadelphia 76ers, with a mere 10-point win over the cellar-stashed Dallas Mavericks keeping them from a four-game losing streak.
The four-game stretch falls in line with the return of point guard Reggie Jackson, as the team struggles to re-acclimate to their floor general for the first time this season.
“We went through stretches where Reggie made some plays in the third quarter and we were scoring, but again, what happens is, we're scoring, but we're trading baskets,” said head coach Stan Van Gundy. “Part of it is, we got guys upset they're not touching the ball and everything else so they're not as engaged in the game on the defensive end of the floor.”
Jackson is a different beast from Ish Smith, who is often content with looking for teammates and being opportunistic in drives to the basket and taking open shots. The 6-foot-3 guard is a ball-dominant score-first type of point guard and that can take the ball off the hands of shooters like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Tobias Harris, who had been keeping the ship afloat through the start of the season.
Morris was his usual frank self without naming any names as the cause of ball stagnation, emphasizing that the team needs to move the ball in order to win games.
“If you have a guy wide open, he has to get the ball,” Morris said. “It builds guys' confidence. It makes the game funner. That's just how it is. Of course some dudes are going to get more shots than other dudes. That's how the game goes. Guys are not going to respond well when they don't get the ball when they're open. That's just basketball. That's just the right way. The Spurs, Golden State, Cleveland, the top-tier teams play the right way. You never win if you don't play the right way. That's just the bottom line.”
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