Pistons' sudden turnaround might be Dwane Casey's best coaching job yet

Back in early January with his team in the midst of a stretch of 15 losses in 19 games, Pistons coach Dwane Casey said something that stood out as odd.

"You can forget where we are and want to be ready for Golden State in the Finals," Casey said. "But that’s not where we are right now."

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It would not have been a surprise at that point if a giant hook had appeared and yanked Casey off the stage. The Pistons were unraveling for much of December and January, yet Casey kept talking about the playoffs, even talking about a Finals trip. He seemed to be off his rocker.

Here we are, though, a little more than two months later, and Casey has turned the tide with this team, even after it shipped off two rotation players — Stanley Johnson and Reggie Bullock — at the trade deadline for long-term projects Thon Maker and Svi Mykhailiuk.

The Pistons bottomed out at seven games below .500 in early February, but even then, there were signs that the team’s offense was shifting in the right direction. They’ve gone 14-5 since, their last loss coming with star Blake Griffin resting in preparation for the playoffs.

Yep, the playoffs. Once left for dead, the Pistons are two games over .500 now and in possession of the East’s No. 6 seed. They’re 3.5 games ahead of the ninth-place Magic, virtually assuring Detroit will be in the postseason for just the second time in the past 10 seasons.

Credit Casey with staying the course this season despite a roster that was dinged by injuries and short on depth. He was the Coach of the Year last season while with Toronto, but he was fired after the Raptors flopped in the conference semifinals against Cleveland. His Pistons went 3-0 against his old team this year and could face them in the opening round of the playoffs.

He won’t win Coach of the Year this season, but a case could be made that he’s done a better coaching job through this tumultuous year in Detroit than he did last season with a talented and deep Raptors team.

Casey’s first challenge was handling point guard Reggie Jackson, who rushed back from a right ankle injury last season and never fully recovered. He had a procedure on the ankle this offseason, but he was tentative in the early part of his return.

That’s shifted, and Jackson has been much more aggressive going to the hoop lately. In his first 50 games, he shot 2.5 shots per game in the paint and made 43.5 percent of them. In his last 20, he is taking 3.2 shots in the paint and making 49.2 percent.

It helps, too, that the Pistons’ 3-point shooters have come alive, including Jackson. Normally a below-average 3-point shooter, Jackson is making 37.2 percent of his 3s this season and 44.4 percent over his last 20 games. Streaky shooter Langston Galloway is making 46.0 percent of his 3s in the last 20 games (up from 33.6 percent in the first 50), and Luke Kennard is making 41.2 percent (up from 36.2 percent to start the year).

The team has not missed a beat without Bullock, its top 3-point shooter, because free-agent signee Wayne Ellington has been starting and is averaging 10.6 points while shooting 39.5 percent from the 3-point line as a Piston. (Bullock went to the Lakers and has slumped at 32.5 percent from the arc.)

In all, the Pistons shot 33.1 percent from the 3-point line in their first 50 games, last in the NBA. They’ve shot 39.2 percent in their last 20 games, first in the league.

Easily the biggest criticism of Casey’s offense in the early going was that it was too reliant on Griffin taking the ball in the high post and dribbling into oblivion. But with the shooters not carrying their weight and with Jackson not quite playing like himself, Casey found that slowing the game down through Griffin was one of his few options.

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But that, too, has changed. Griffin is one of the heaviest dribblers among non-guards in the league, and over the first 50 games, 48.7 percent of his possessions were three dribbles or more, resulting in 9.1 field-goal attempts. Over the last 20, that’s down to 43.7 percent of his possessions and 6.9 field-goal attempts.

The Pistons are not leaning so heavily on Griffin these days. In fact, they’re sharing the ball a lot more — their assist percentage has gone from 57.6 in the first 50 games to 59.2 percent in the last 20.

There’s been one other key turnaround for the Pistons — the bench. To start the year, it was among the least productive group of reserves in the league, but that’s changed.

Galloway’s hot stretch has helped, but having veteran backup point guard Ish Smith return to full health — he missed 26 games, mostly with a torn abductor muscle — has been a big factor. Kennard, too, had an early-season injury and only now seems more comfortable in his role.

The difference among reserves over the first 50 games and the last 20 games has been stark:

Casey has been flexible throughout the year, far less rigid than his predecessor, Stan Van Gundy. He’s been willing to lean on hot bench players, more willing to tinker with his rotation to find bench pieces he can use.

It’s finally working. Griffin and center Andre Drummond have been mainstays all season, but Casey’s positivity has been there throughout, too.

After the moves that sent away Bullock and Johnson gave the appearance of the Pistons giving up on the season, Casey told reporters, "That vision doesn’t change, and as long as I’m here, that vision will stay the same as far as trying to be in the playoffs, getting into the playoffs, ultimately to get people talking about the Detroit Pistons competing for a championship."

OK, a championship is still a bit far-fetched. But Casey has brought this bunch back into the thick of the playoff picture.

That might have been a tougher thing to pull off than last year’s accomplishments in Toronto.