Drummond finished with a season-high five blocks to go along with 18 points and 20 rebounds.
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“He was aggressively protecting the rim right from the start of the game, which was what we needed, ” Van Gundy said. He deserves credit for embracing the challenge, even egging teams on, but let’s not get carried away.
“We had a talk yesterday at practice about me not challenging shots, so I made that a job tonight”, he said. “But individually, I just sucked”.
For Miami, they come into tonight’s game 7-1 in their last eight games, winners of three straight.
Anthony Tolliver provided the spark early, hitting three of four 3-pointers in the first half and keying a 35-point second quarter and 60-43 lead for the Pistons at intermission.
It’s always dicey trying to figure out if shots falling make for good offense or if good offense leads to shots that pros usually make.
After shooting horribly from deep in their last game, the Pistons shot lights out from three-point land against the Heat. He has multiple blocks in 14 consecutive games, the longest such streak in the National Basketball Association since Josh Smith recorded 15 multiple-block games to start the 2007-08 season.
“We got a little lucky tonight”, he said. It’s like every other arena.
Hassan Whiteside has joined the ranks of DeAndre Jordan and Andre Drummond on the dubious list of players teams will intentionally put at the foul line. I thought that was great.
Drummond had a double-double at halftime with 12 points and 12 rebounds, while Jackson added 12 points and four assists.
Im happy where Im at, Jackson said. “The second unit, they went out there and competed”. But other than that, whatever the rules are well play by them..
He does not anticipate a positive response from Thunder fans when the Pistons play there Friday night.
Thats something that theyre going to have to decide, Van Gundy said. Most of my offense comes from my defense anyway, so I know I had to focus on that first, ” he said. “We can’t shoot like that every game, but we can play defense and hustle, and we didn’t do that in the last game”. He can do pretty much everything, its really just getting back into really being able to play at that tempo. “You see him out there working that hard and defending, it helps everybody”. Van Gundy sensed something good from the collective reaction to that loss.
I understand. Its not something Ive spoken about because Ive had Shaq, Ive had Dwight, now I have Andre so Im not the guy to be talking about it. If I came out and said we have to do something about it, it would be very self-serving. “We know we’ve got a tough task in stopping the two-headed monster down there and we’re going to try to attack them back on the offensive side when we get the ball”.
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“We were upset about what happened in Milwaukee, and we had something to prove tonight”, Reggie Jackson said after Detroit’s 104-81 victory.
