The NBA getting overwhelmed by the COVID-19 Omicron’s surge is producing a lot of improbable stories. If there’s one they’ll make a movie about, the Pistons nominate the win the most unlikely lineup in franchise history pulled off to open 2022.
Six of the 10 Pistons who played in Saturday’s 117-116 overtime win were signed to emergency 10-day contracts within the past 11 days. Only three of the 10 are on standard NBA contracts and only one, Saddiq Bey, is a normal Pistons starter.
It was Bey, fittingly, who made the shot – a corner triple with 1.9 seconds left, smothered by San Antonio’s Jakob Poeltl and Keldon Johnson – that gave the Pistons their first win since Dec. 19 and handed a relatively healthy Spurs team, one that didn’t have any 10-day contracts in uniform, a loss that sent them muttering into the New Year’s night blizzard.
“I ain’t gonna lie – I called it,” Bey said, remarkable confidence for a guy who was 1 of 11 from the arc at the time he launched the game winner. “I knew it was good. D-Walt threw a great pass. I knew if I caught it, I was going to have a chance.”
D-Walt would be Derrick Walton Jr., one of the 10-day heroes. A Detroit kid who started four years at the University of Michigan and has played 45 games in the five years since going undrafted for three NBA teams was called on for 40 minutes Saturday. The pass to Bey was his sixth assist to go with 11 points, six rebounds and four steals.
“It’s a surreal moment,” he said. “Being a hometown kid, going to Michigan and then being able to play for the hometown team, it’s something I couldn’t even dream of. It don’t feel real, honestly.”
It likely didn’t feel real to the Spurs, either, who just last Sunday destroyed the Pistons 144-109, the first game the Pistons had to lean so heavily on G League call-ups to field a lineup. If there was a silver lining, it was that the Pistons had two days between games after both that one and Wednesday’s more respectable loss to the Knicks, a game in which the Pistons led into the fourth quarter.
“When we played ’em the first time, that was our first collection of everybody together,” Bey said. “We had a couple of great practices, knowing how to share the ball. The first game was almost an open gym pickup with a lot of new guys. Being together for a week, it really helped.”
Bey finished with 21 points and a career-high 17 rebounds in 47 grueling minutes. Hamidou Diallo was extended even longer, to 50 minutes, and finished with 34 points – one off his career high – and 13 rebounds. Rookie Luka Garza – the 52nd pick and the third of the three players on standard contracts – matched his season high of 20 points and set a new high with 14 boards while playing 40 minutes. Cassius Stanley, another 10-day addition, started in the spot left vacant by Frank Jackson – the fill-in starter for Cade Cunningham – after Jackson was lost for at least a week with a sprained ankle in Wednesday’s game and Stanley’s 19 points more than doubled his previous career high of nine.
“Everybody was happy” in the locker room, Dwane Casey said. “I was happy for everybody, especially the G League guys that came in. It’s hard to come into this league and win with rookies. Then you add G League guys who are fighting and scratching.”
The first two players off of Casey’s bench Saturday were Micah Potter and Jaysean Paige, each making his NBA debut. Justin Robinson – playing his second game with the Pistons, his third NBA team of the season – hit half his four 3-point attempts and played a solid 23 minutes, finishing with eight points.
The Pistons fell 17 points behind early in the second quarter when Casey tried to steal a few minutes of rest for his starters. They cut it to seven by halftime and surged ahead during a brilliant third quarter when they outscored San Antonio 33-22. When Diallo sat for two minutes to start the fourth quarter, the Pistons went six straight possessions without scoring and San Antonio took the lead. But the Pistons went up by nine points with seven minutes to play before having to fight back and force overtime.
It looked like the Pistons would have to settle for the moral victory common to a scrappy underdog when they sent Derrick White to the foul line with 11 seconds left in overtime trailing by a point. But White cracked the door by splitting the free throws. The Pistons could have tied with a 2-pointer, but another overtime would have been taxing for Diallo, Bey, Garza and Walton. So Walton made a seeing-eye pass to Bey for the all-or-nothing triple.
“We work extremely hard every day,” Bey said. “We put the work in. Whether shots go in, we can’t control that. But we control our effort. That’s our mentality and we played that way.”