Alec Burks' hot shooting will go a long way to Detroit Pistons being competitive

SALT LAKE CITY — Everyone in the arena knew how the possession would end as soon as the ball touched his hands. Still, the opponents were unable to stop it.

With 4.4 seconds on the clock, Alec Burks inbounded the ball to Isaiah Livers, just to get it right back. He raced down the court. Three defenders met him at the 3-point line. But the ball hit only net after Burks heaved a deep 3-pointer over their outstretched arms.

The veteran sharpshooter tied the game at 138 as the buzzer sounded, giving the Detroit Pistons 5 more minutes against a team who refused to let them pull away. They ultimately fell short, losing to the Utah Jazz, 154-148, in overtime on Wednesday night. But the shot capped Burks' best game of the season — he scored 23 of his season-high 27 points in the second half.

It was the third straight game in which Burks looked like his usual self after uncharacteristically struggling this season, as he scored 16 in the Pistons’ skid-snapping win over the Toronto Raptors last Saturday and 21 against the Houston Rockets on Monday. In that three-game stretch, he shot 55.9% overall.

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“It’s a long season, I know how it go,” Burks said in the locker room after Wednesday’s loss. “It’s a long time. You’ll make shots, you’ll miss shots but it’s always gonna come back around.”

Burks, a career 38.2% 3-point shooter, was one of Detroit’s most reliable scorers last season. His knack for knocking down 3-pointers and getting to the line made him a stalwart in then-head coach Dwane Casey’s rotation. He shot 41.4% from 3, and was among the NBA’s best offensive players off of the bench.

He appeared to be set for a similar season this year, scoring 24 and 18 points in Detroit’s second and third games of the season — both wins. But after returning from a forearm injury on Nov. 12, the 32-year-old shot just 29.9% overall and 26.9% from 3 over the Pistons’ next 20 games.

New head coach Monty Williams never gave up on him, though, and he’s finally rounding back into form.

He was vintage Burks against the Jazz.

“He’s a guy that has a body of work, and I see the work every day,” Williams said on Sunday. “I see his ability to stay in there and be the same guy every day. I know he’s not going to waver. That, for me, gives me confidence to continue to play a guy.

“There were times where the minutes came down a little bit, but you’re not going to go away from somebody like Alec Burks just because he has a body of work that says this is who he is. If he has a slump, it’s going to come back because of the work and who he is.”

Following a quiet first half, Burks caught fire at the end of the third quarter on Wednesday. The Utah Jazz rallied to take the lead after trailing by 10 in the first quarter. Burks scored 10 points in the third, all in the final two minutes and 41 seconds.

He drove and finished a tough floater over Walker Kessler, banked in a midrange jumper after creating space with his shoulder against Lauri Markkanen, and then banked another jumper — this time from 3 — through contact to complete the four-point play and give Detroit the lead, 107-104. He capped the quarter with a long 2-pointer from the corner, allowing the Pistons to take a five-point lead into the fourth.

Burks then topped his 10-point third quarter with a 13-point fourth, during which he hit three 3-pointers, including the game-tying deep 3 at the final buzzer. It was a performance that recalled several of his big nights last season. He hit nine of his 17 shots against Utah and five of his nine 3-pointers.

“I think he’s one of the best guys from the bench in this league,” said Bojan Bogdanovic, who had a big night of his own with 36 points. “He showed that last year, and he struggled a little bit the last couple of games but he’s back.”

The Pistons have been offensively challenged this season, with the NBA’s fourth-worst percentage from 3 (34.5%) while averaging the fewest attempts per game (30.1). But they’re a different team when Burks and Bogdanovic are hot. They combined for 13 made 3-pointers against Utah — Bogdanovic set a season-high by knocking down eight of his 15 attempts.

In an effort to help the Pistons sustain momentum, Williams has been opening the second and fourth quarters with Bogdanovic playing with reserves as Cade Cunningham rests. Detroit’s bench has been a weak point this season, but the second unit looks significantly more capable when defenses have to account for Bogdanovic and Burks.

Detroit made 19 3-pointers on Wednesday, a season-high by a wide margin. Their previous high was 15, set on four different occasions.

Even though the Pistons lost, Williams credited his team’s effort after the game and said he had nothing negative to say. Two days after being embarrassed by the Rockets in Houston, the Pistons went down to the wire and led most of the first half.

At 3-31, the Pistons are clawing to show that they can still turn things around this season. They came away from the overtime loss encouraged by Bogdanovic and Burks’ clutch plays in a close game.

“It’s huge for us,” Cunningham said. “It’s huge for us. Shot-making for us is a rare resource for us. We haven’t shot the ball well this year. When we’re hitting shots, we look like a totally different team, and when we’re missing shots it doesn’t look good. Gotta have our two guys that we trust making shots, doing their thing. It puts us where we wanna be.”

Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him @omarisankofa.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Why Alec Burks goes a long way to Detroit Pistons being competitive