If you’d have been told the Pistons – minus two starters and four of their top seven players – held a 15-point lead on San Antonio midway through the second quarter, the guess would have been that they were shooting the lights out from the 3-point line.
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They weren’t. In fact, when Luke Kennard hit a triple to make it 33-20 – foreshadowing a career game for the rookie – the Pistons were only 3 of 12 from the arc. But they were defending exceptionally well, getting out in transition and making enough of their chances inside the arc to lead 35-20 with 5:39 left in the half. And then they went eight straight possessions without a point, giving San Antonio all the time it needed to straighten out an offense that produced astonishingly little for the first 18 minutes.
The Spurs cut the lead to one at 37-36 and that looked like the end of what would have been a pretty good story. But they continued to claw, playing perhaps their best defensive game of the season, and got a big fourth-quarter lift from Kennard, who scored 12 of his career-best 20 in the quarter.
– Andre Drummond was dominant in the first quarter with eight points, 10 rebounds and three assists in 11 minutes as the Pistons held San Antonio to 5 of 21 shooting. In the second quarter, Drummond managed just one rebound in nine minutes as San Antonio got on the boards and LaMarcus Aldridge, in particular, hurt them with second-chance scoring. Drummond only grabbed one rebound in more than eight second-quarter minutes, then had eight more in the third quarter.
The Pistons held San Antonio to 37 percent shooting and committed just 11 turnovers. They finished 8 of 24 from the 3-point arc – four apiece from Reggie Bullock (22 points) and Kennard.
