When Isaiah Stewart returned from a month-long absence with an ankle injury and a three-game suspension tacked on top of it, Monty Williams wasted no time rushing him back into the starting lineup. That’s because the Pistons didn’t have any time to waste with just 25 games left in the season ahead of a defining off-season, where the Pistons will make noise with a high lottery pick coming and a trove of cap space to go big-game hunting.
The Pistons scored a road win that night, holding Chicago to 95 points. Their best defensive team – the element that, from the top down, the Pistons have said they want to hang their hat on – includes Stewart. His return allows the Pistons to stress test their young core as a unit. Stewart is now their longest-tenured player even though he won’t turn 23 until after the season ends. He’s also their oldest starter with Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey six and 11 months away from 23, Ausar Thompson 21 and Jalen Duren 20.
It’s entirely possible – likely, even – that the Pistons will land a sure-fire starter who best complements that group over the summer with 3-point shooting from the wing perhaps highest on the wish list. But no matter what the starting lineup looks like on opening night 2024, it will be useful for the Pistons to get an eyeful of Cunningham, Ivey, Duren, Stewart and Thompson as a unit to allow five players so integral to their future to have to figure out a pathway to winning basketball.
One key to their viability will be getting enough 3-point shooting to unlock the playmaking potential of Cunningham with his vision and processing skills and Ivey with his dynamic athleticism. Toward that end, there are encouraging signs. Stewart has driven his 3-point percentage above the NBA average this season even though he’s still a relative newbie in terms of playing away from the paint. Taking 3.9 attempts from the 3-point arc per game, Stewart is hitting 38.1 percent in a season where 36.7 in league average.
Cunningham, after a slow start to the season as he knocked off the rust from missing the final 70 games of the 2022-23 season, is pushing near the league average now at 35.6 percent. Since Feb. 1, he’s at 40.4 percent. A recent slump has seen Ivey’s 3-point mark drop to 34.1 percent. As recently as Feb. 8, Ivey was shooting 39.1 percent from three. A strong finish can boost him at least back to league average.
Williams tinkered with the rotation in Sunday’s game at Orlando, shuttling Stewart out midway through the first quarter so he could replace Duren at center a few minutes later. Williams is committed to using Duren and Stewart in tandem in the starting lineup as Stewart continues to expand his game at both ends.
“In today’s NBA, there’s so many guards, really, at the four spot and then there’s teams like Denver that go big and they win a championship,” Williams said Sunday. “Milwaukee is big. There’s a number of teams that have big guys at the five and the four. We like it because of Stewie’s versatility, but also like that we can put him at the five, also. Not many teams take their four and put him at the five.”
Williams has also begun to stagger the minutes of Cunningham and Ivey to get away from heavy all-bench minutes. Marcus Sasser returned to the lineup ahead of schedule on Sunday after missing four games with a minor knee injury. There will be further experimentation over the season’s final six weeks, including getting long glimpses of newcomers Simone Fontecchio and Quentin Grimes as mainstays of the second unit. More than anything, though, it will be a time to fully explore the possibilities with their young starters getting more concentrated time together than ever before.
PISTONS TRIVIA
On March 4, 1992, Dennis Rodman set a Pistons record that still stands, grabbing 34 rebounds in a single game. Against which team did Rodman achieve that record?
A: Boston
B: Indiana
C: Charlotte
D: Philadelphia
THIS WEEK IN PISTONS HISTORY
On March 4, 1985 the roof of the Pontiac Silverdome, home of the Pistons for a decade from 1978-88, collapsed after heavy snow tore the 10-acre Teflon-coated Fiberglas covering. That forced the Pistons to play their home games for the remainder of that season at Joe Louis Arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings since 1979. In their first game at Joe Louis, the Pistons hammered the New York Knicks – who had defeated them in that very building the previous April to win the deciding Game 5 in overtime of their first-round playoff series when the Silverdome had been booked for another event – by a 114-90 count. Bill Laimbeer finished with 20 points and 16 rebounds and Vinnie Johnson scored 21 off the bench as one of seven players in double figures to pace the Pistons. The Silverdome was built as the home of the Detroit Lions, opening in 1975. The roof collapse happened in late morning and came while Lions players Gary Danielson, Eric Hipple and James Jones were working out inside the stadium. “It just looked like an avalanche,” Danielson said. “It looked like somebody threw hand grenades in there. It was a lot more dangerous situation than we thought at first.” The Pistons basketball court, which was set up in a corner of the football-playing surface, was warped and chunks of concrete from the stadium’s upper deck were sent crashing to the surface below by the cascading avalanche of heavy snow, though no injuries were incurred. Hipple was standing beneath the southwest corner of the roof when it began to tear, Danielson said at the time. “All we did was start pointing. Eric didn’t know what was happening. Then it started coming down all at once and we ran like hell to the tunnel.”
The Pistons were scheduled to host the Milwaukee Bucks that night, but the game was rescheduled for April.
THE AUSAR EFFECT
Ausar Thompson ranks second in steals and fourth in blocked shots among NBA rookies. His 63 steals ranks behind only Victor Wembanyama’s 71 and his 55 blocks trails only rim-protecting centers Wembanyama, Chet Holmgren and Derrick Lively. He’s one of only four rookies in Pistons history to top 50 in both categories, joining Andre Drummond, Grant Hill and Terry Tyler. In Friday’s game with Cleveland, Thompson became the fourth Piston to register at least five steals, two blocked shots and two 3-pointers made in a game, joining Rasheed Wallace, Josh Smith and Killian Hayes. Thompson’s line in that game: 15 points, seven rebounds, three assists, five steals and two blocked shots while hitting 2 of 3 from the 3-point arc. The biggest hole in Thompson’s game is 3-point shooting, of course, but he’s begun exhibiting signs of greater comfort there. Over the last four games, Thompson has hit 6 of 16 and has at least one made triple in each game after not having done so in more than two straight previously. Rookie or not, Thompson consistently draws the toughest defensive assignment from Monty Williams and his impact on that end is undeniable. The Pistons defensive rating with Thompson on the floor is nearly 10 points better than with him on the bench.
THE WEEK AHEAD
- TUESDAY – The Pistons complete their two-game swing through Florida with a stop in Miami against a surging opponent. The Heat are 8-2 in their last 10 games despite playing seven of those games on the road. Jimmy Butler scored 37 points in Miami’s Saturday win over Utah and the Heat will have had two days off before hosting the Pistons. Newcomer Terry Rozier is averaging 13.7 points for Miami in 13 games since arriving from Charlotte, where he scored nearly 10 points a game more, and shooting just 24.2 percent from the 3-point line. Miami slipped a half-game behind Orlando when the Magic beat the Pistons on Sunday night, leaving the Heat in the No. 7 spot in the Eastern Conference.
7:30 p.m. on BALLY SPORTS DETROIT and 97.1 FM THE TICKET
- THURSDAY – The Pistons host the Brooklyn Nets, who fired Jacque Vaughn last month and replaced him on an interim basis with assistant coach Kevin Ollie, to kick off a six-game home stand. The Nets start the week with a 24-36 record and two games back of Atlanta, which sits in the 10th spot – the last play-in tournament berth. Brooklyn, though, helped its cause by sweeping consecutive home games over the Hawks to end last week, winning by 27 and 12 points. Brooklyn has won three of four after losing seven of eight games. The game at Little Caesars Arena starts a streak of five straight road games for the Nets.
7 p.m. on BALLY SPORTS DETROIT and 97.1 FM THE TICKET
- SATURDAY – The Pistons host the Dallas Mavericks and their high-octane backcourt of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. The Mavs had been on an upswing before losing three of four on an Eastern Conference road trip that included losses in Indiana, Cleveland and Boston and then returned home on Sunday to lose to Philadelphia. That was enough to send Dallas tumbling from sixth place in the Western Conference on Feb. 23 to eighth heading into the week. Doncic leads the NBA in scoring at 34.5 points a game and is third in assists at 9.7. Irving averages 25.7 points and 5.1 assists.
7 p.m. on BALLY SPORTS DETROIT and WWJ-AM 950
TRIVIA ANSWER
Rodman, in his sixth season since Jack McCloskey drafted him as an almost completely unknown prospect from tiny Southeastern Oklahoma State, grabbed his 34 rebounds against the Indiana Pacers to help the Pistons to a 110-107 win. It capped a remarkable streak of games in which Rodman recorded at least 20 rebounds in nine of 10 games, averaging 23.6 over that span. Of Rodman’s 34 rebounds, 18 came on the offensive side. The 34 rebounds broke a Pistons record held by Bob Lanier that had stood for 20 years. “The way he’s been going this year, you knew it was going to happen,” teammate Bill Laimbeer said. “It’s an outstanding achievement.” Rodman’s 18 offensive rebounds also set a Pistons record, topping the mark of 13 set by Earl Williams in 1976. Rodman nearly outrebounded Indiana’s entire team, falling only six shy. “He’s having a great year,” Pacers guard and former Piston Micheal Williams said. “The only way to stop Rodman is to get him out of the game by fouling him out.” Rodman broke into tears after learning he’d broken Lanier’s record. “Everyone kept telling me I needed one more rebound, but I thought they meant to get to 30. I couldn’t believe it when the fans started cheering.” Isiah Thomas played all 48 minutes and scored 31 points to lead the Pistons in scoring while Rodman played 45 minutes and Joe Dumars 44. It would be Chuck Daly’s final season as Pistons coach. The Pistons finished 48-34 but lost to the Knicks in the first round of the playoffs. Rodman averaged a career-high 18.7 rebounds a game that season and won the first of seven consecutive NBA rebounding titles.
(Eddie Rivero, Pistons basketball information specialist, contributed to this report.)