DETROIT >> A road trip in the middle of the holiday season is never ideal for any team. But for the Detroit Pistons, a four-game West Coast road trip made their players feel like they were a part of a close-knit family.
“We are a lot of class-act guys who care about the game and work hard,” Pistons forward Tobias Harris said. “We are a young group as well, and there are a lot of similarities we share. We have good chemistry. We are a team that wants to win and come together and figure out the best way we can get it done as a group.”
The Pistons spent most of the Christmas holiday bonding on the road, playing video games, or having meaningful conversations on the team plane. Due to the variety of styles in the locker room, the players did nearly everything together except for sharing music.
“It is not a good mix,” Harris said. “I call it ‘crash-out music,’ it is what they are playing these days. Sometimes, you have to deal with all of the hollering.”
Their time together away from the court became an essential reason for the strong cohesion that led to their recent 3-1 record on a four-game road trip.
It marked the Pistons’ most successful Western swing in nearly two decades. The 2008-09 season was the last time Detroit won at least three games during a road trip out West.
Cade Cunningham continued to play at an All-NBA-worthy caliber while the team made positive strides on both ends. The Pistons’ success away from home pleased coach J.B. Bickerstaff. He believed his team achieved a handful of “quality wins.” However, one of the most critical lessons Bickerstaff believed his team had obtained was how to win close games in the fourth quarter.
“It’s the process of understanding what we needed to do as the year went on,” Bickerstaff said. “Our guys have bought into what we are trying to do, and I give them a ton of credit. They believe in one another, and they trust one another … guys know what we are capable of when you do it correctly.”
Each of the Pistons’ road victories went down to the wire. They held off the respective late-game heroics of Kevin Durant and LeBron James in wins against the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers. Thursday night at the Golden 1 Center, they pulled off an improbable comeback against the Sacramento Kings.
The Pistons battled back from a 19-point deficit and trailed 113-110 with 11 seconds remaining. Jaden Ivey came up huge for Detroit in the final seconds by connecting on an And-1 3-point field goal and game-winning foul shot to secure a 114-113 win.
However, before heading west, the Pistons were mediocre in clutch situations. If not for several late-game mishaps, they would be sitting comfortably in the Eastern Conference halfway through the season. In 14 games before the trip, Detroit either trailed or held the lead by five points or fewer within the final five minutes of the fourth quarter, producing a 6-8 record.
“I thought this road trip was great for us,” Harris said. “We had a lot of things we emphasized and focused on, in which I thought we made progress. To be on the road and figuring out ways to win games and to close games are the biggest things. It showed the team’s unity and how we were able to come together. Those types of road trips build a lot of momentum.”
The Pistons were thrilled with their late-game execution improvements, but Bickerstaff said the team is not a finished product.
Eight of the Pistons’ next 10 games will be at Little Caesars Arena, starting tonight against the Orlando Magic. Bickerstaff aims to use the lengthy time at home to continue working to eliminate the team’s blunders as they hold postseason aspirations.
“It is going to be good for us,” Bickerstaff said. “The last trip was long to be out on the road, so it is going to be great to be at home and play in front of our fans, try to gain some momentum around the city. Hopefully, people can recognize what we are doing and how we are growing and get some people in the building. … Being at home. Being on our practice floor, all of those things give us extra time to do what we need to do.”
Harris believes the Pistons are capable of ending the franchise’s six-year playoff drought. Every player in the locker room shares this objective, with music being the team’s only disagreement.
“Tim (Hardaway Jr.) and I are on the same vibe in terms of music,” Harris said. “J.D. (Jalen Duren) actually has a good selection of music, but he can go off the rail sometimes. Ron (Holland II) also has some good music taste. But he also has a lot of the young guys’ stuff.”