Detroit Pistons' preseason comeback against Oklahoma City Thunder is 'culture win'
MONTREAL — It was a preseason game, but the stakes felt high for the Detroit Pistons on Thursday night.
They played the Oklahoma City Thunder in Montreal as part of the NBA’s Canada Series, and Bell Centre was packed with raucous fans rooting for the opposing team. It was a home game for the Thunder, who had the two most popular players in the gym: Montreal native Luguentz Dort and Toronto native Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Not only that, but the Pistons entered the game in search of an identity. They lost their preseason opener at home on Sunday, falling to the Phoenix Suns in overtime, 130-126. They trailed by 26 points in the third quarter, but rallied back to force an extra period. With a new head coach in Monty Williams and several key players in street clothes, it wasn’t a great game to draw conclusions from.
But after two preseason games, they've at least demonstrated a willingness to fight. Thursday brought another double-digit rally, and a successful one this time, winning 128-125 despite trailing by 21 points in the third quarter. Williams exited the locker room afterward confident in his group’s resiliency.
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“That was a culture win for us,” Williams said. “I told our guys preseason, regular season, competitors compete. That’s what we have to hang our hat on, building our culture. Wherever we go, we compete. We kept our spirit where it needed to be, even in the third quarter where you’re like, 'Ehh, not looking great but we can be more consistent.' And then we just had a ton of guys make plays.”
The Pistons were without two starters in Cade Cunningham — a late scratch due to left calf tendonitis — and Jalen Duren, who tweaked his right ankle on Sunday and wasn’t healthy enough to play. With Bojan Bogdanovic, Monte Morris and Isaiah Livers also out, Detroit was lacking five top rotation players and three top shooters.
Killian Hayes, who started in place of Cunningham, helped the Pistons stay in striking distance with his second solid all-around game. And in the fourth quarter, three players who started the game on the bench took over: James Wiseman, Marcus Sasser and Stanley Umude.
The trio combined for 36 points in the final period, including the shots that iced the game. Umude gave the Pistons their first lead of the night with 94 seconds left, knocking down his third 3-pointer to make it 122-121. A tip-in by Wiseman gave them the lead again, 126-125, with 48 seconds remaining. And Sasser and Umude finished the Thunder off with a pair of free throws apiece in the final 14 seconds.
That, coupled with a strong defensive finish after giving up 102 points through three quarters, allowed Detroit to steal a late win. The Thunder shot just 6-for-26 in the final period.
“We got a number of consecutive stops and concessions late third and in the fourth, and we ended up holding them to 23 points in the fourth,” Williams said. “That’s a huge win for us. (The Thunder) have unreal continuity, they have guys that know what they’re doing in that system. For us to keep being resilient, especially in the second half, says a lot about our guys.”
Wiseman, starting his first full season in Detroit after joining the franchise at last season's trade deadline, led the Pistons with 20 points and 10 rebounds while making all eight of his attempts. He had 17 points and eight rebounds in the second half alone, and hit several clutch buckets — including a 3-pointer early in the fourth quarter that cut the Thunder’s lead to seven. It was a much-improved performance compared to Sunday, when he finished with four points and seven rebounds in 16 minutes.
Sasser, the No. 25 overall pick in this summer's draft out of Houston, finished with 17 points and eight assists, scoring 12 in the final period. And Umude, an undrafted player in 2022 who spent most of last season with the Motor City Cruise in the G League, hit three of his four 3-pointers in the fourth en route to an 18-point night. Hayes also deserves a shoutout, as he finished with 16 points on 7-for-13 shooting and four assists after scoring 13 points and dishing seven assists on Sunday.
The Pistons also won because they cleaned up their own mistakes, namely 15 fouls in the first half (giving the Thunder an 21-7 free throw attempt advantage) and 12 turnovers. They also frequently bit on pump fakes and hit just three of seven free throw attempts before the intermission.
“The way we got ourselves back in the game down 15, 20, it’s all self-inflicted,” Hayes said. “It’s all turnovers and getting back on defense, which is everything we can fix. I love the way we reacted in the second half and came back.”
The Pistons now have nearly a week before their final two preseason games: They play the Thunder again in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Thursday, followed by a visit to Dallas to face the Mavericks a day later. Those games could bring the return of Bogdanovic Cunningham and Morris.
Thursday is a game the Pistons can build off of. Williams wants to clean up their lackadaisical starts, but he was pleased to see how the team responded overall. As their health improves, the challenge will be sustaining their effort level and willingness to adjust.
“I don’t want this to come off the wrong way but I’ve been a parent for a while,” Williams said. “When your kids make mistakes, you look for their remorse. If they didn’t have any remorse over it, I’d be worried. But every time somebody made a mistake, or it was a discipline error that we had gone over, they knew it right away. That, to me, is something that you can grow from.”
Pistons team with nonprofit to break cereal record
To provide meals to families in need, the Pistons teamed up with national nonprofit Move For Hunger on Thursday to break a world record.
The nonprofit earned Guinness World Records' title for "Most Cereal Boxes Toppled in a Domino Fashion" at the Pistons Performance Center in Midtown, toppling 12,952 boxes. The previous record was 6,391. The boxes were donated by WK Kellogg Co and Kroger, and the United Dairy Industry of Michigan donated a gallon of milk per cereal box.
With the event, the Pistons provided 500,000 meals for Move for Hunger. The cereal was donated to local Michigan food banks after the record was completed.
Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him @omarisankofa.
Next up: Thunder
Matchup: Pistons (1-1) vs. Oklahoma City (1-1), exhibition.
Tipoff: 8 p.m. Thursday; BOK Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
TV/radio: No TV; WXYT-FM (97.1).
Regular-season opener: At Miami Heat; 7:30 p.m. Oct. 25; BSD.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Pistons' rally makes for 'culture win' in preseason
