The Detroit Pistons preceded the Orlando Magic at Cleveland’s downtown Ritz-Carlton hotel by a few hours over the weekend.
By all accounts, no one wearing Pistons red and blue turned off the hot water at the hotel, stole all the bacon and eggs or unleashed cans of bedbugs into the rooms upon checkout, though one could understand if they did.
Advertisement
Through a coincidence of the NBA’s master schedule, the Pistons and Magic, two of the teams jockeying to make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference, blew through Cleveland on the same, blustery first weekend in March. They stayed at the same hotel, yes, but that’s about where the similarities of their experiences ended.
The Pistons, who flew east for about 25 minutes from suburban Detroit to Cleveland’s Hopkins Airport, steamrolled a Cavs team by 36 points on the night Cleveland picked to sit Kevin Love, its best player.
The Magic, meanwhile, got to the Ritz at 1 a.m. after beating the Pacers on Friday in Indianapolis, which by NBA standards is humane for a back to back. But with the 6 o’clock start time in Cleveland, Orlando coach Steve Clifford was still unhappy with the turnaround, arguing that the NBA players’ union ought to fight for a rule mandating at least 24 hours between tipoffs.
A much bigger concern for Clifford and the Magic: Love was in the lineup. An even bigger issue, the Magic lost to the Cavs on Sunday, 107-93.
There was more bad news for Orlando. The Pistons, who played in Cleveland at 5 o’clock Saturday and were home in their own beds before midnight, beat Toronto in overtime Sunday in a game in which Kawhi Leonard didn’t play.
As it stands this morning, the Magic (30-35) is percentage points ahead of Charlotte for eighth in the East, two games behind No. 7 Brooklyn and 2.5 games in back of Detroit (31-31).
“We’re not even looking at seventh or eighth — why not sixth,” said Pistons guard Ish Smith, who coincidentally played on the last Orlando team to make the playoffs.
When was that, you ask? How about 2012, giving the Magic the third-longest active playoff drought in the NBA. Orlando hasn’t been as high as eighth place this late in the season in any year since.
Advertisement
The Pistons, well, they were last in the playoffs in 2016, when they were swept out of the first round by the Cavs. Before that, they were swept by Cleveland in 2009. Which means Detroit hasn’t won a playoff game since 2008.
This is the story of Detroit and Orlando, two franchises marred by disappointment over the years, hoping to plant the seeds for a rebirth through a playoff bid, chasing these dreams through Cleveland — a city where the playoffs and NBA Finals were once an annual rite.
The Cavs are where they are — sitting with 16 wins, preparing for the draft — in no small part because of Love’s injured toe.
Yes, LeBron James left for Los Angeles and the Cavs chose to give young players key minutes, but they lost Love to toe surgery and it cost them 50 games. In the games he played since his return Feb. 8, they’re 5-2.
“We are going to be playing against some teams that are playing for something, and recognizing that we have a chance to play spoiler,” Cavs coach Larry Drew said. “That’s kind of the nature of the beast at this point. … We’ve been on the other end of the spectrum the last few years where teams have had that same opportunity against us. Now the shoe is on the other foot.”
Because of Love’s toe, though, and the $120 million they owe him over the next four years, and, ahem, the vague interest the Cavs have in making a high draft choice (which requires losing), Love’s not going to play in both games of a back to back.
Not only did the Cavs not have Love, but starting center Tristan Thompson’s absence from a sore foot is up to 19 games, and his replacement, Ante Zizic, is in the concussion protocol. The Pistons’ behemoths of Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond were way too much for Cleveland’s front line.
Love, naturally, returned to play the Magic and pounded them with 16 points and 14 rebounds.
Advertisement
“Listen, who you play, when you play him, that’s up to them. That’s none of my business,” Clifford said when asked about Love.
The Cavs say they rested Love on Saturday instead of Sunday to give him two days between games for two consecutive games. There’ll be nights the rest of the season when he’ll rest, even when there is no game the next night.
The Pistons’ run of good luck continued Sunday when the Raptors, as they do from time to time, sat their best player Leonard just to rest him. Griffin, who only had to play 26 minutes in the blowout of the Cavs the night before, led Detroit with 27 points in its overtime win over Toronto.
“You want immediate success, but there’s a process to this as you’ve seen with a lot of teams,” Griffin said. “You’ve got to start a foundation somewhere, build a precedent for how you’re going to play, and I think that’s what we’re doing right now.”
Griffin, an All-Star this season, was sent in a blockbuster trade last year to Detroit from the Los Angeles Clippers, where he went to the playoffs for six consecutive years and made five consecutive All-Star teams.
Former Pistons coach and team president Stan Van Gundy, under pressure to make the playoffs, traded for Griffin. When Detroit didn’t make it last season Van Gundy was dismissed.
The Pistons replaced him with Dwane Casey, who of course was fired by the Raptors even though he had coached Toronto to a No. 1 seed in the East. His undoing was a sweep in the conference semifinals by LeBron and the Cavs for the second consecutive season.
Griffin meanwhile is averaging 25.5 points and 7.9 rebounds for the Pistons — four points and a rebound better per game than he posted for Detroit in 25 games after the trade.
“Blake’s been a leader for us all season,” Casey said. “Last year, with the trade and everything, he never got a chance to put an imprint on this team. He’s really put a stamp on our team this year, been excellent all season.”
Casey spoke with The Athletic on Friday from the Ritz while he waited for his brother David to pick him up and take him to dinner in Cleveland.
David Casey is in leadership in the minority affairs division for CVS Pharmacy. Dwane wasn’t sure where they were headed for food, he just wanted to make sure wherever they went had a TV so he could watch his old team, the Raptors, play Portland.
Advertisement
Not only is Casey gone from Toronto, where he lost to the Cavs in the playoffs in three of the last four seasons, but so are some of his favorite players from those teams. So he said his interest in watching the Raptors on Friday night was rooted in the scheduled date with them Sunday.
Casey is also keenly aware that, depending on how the bracket shakes out, the Pistons and Toronto could meet in the first round of the playoffs.
“It would mean a lot,” Casey said. “This is a storied franchise in Detroit. There are three championship trophies you see every time you walk into the building. It’s not like in Toronto, where they’ve never tasted it. The fans in Detroit, they know what a championship is all about, and it’s like, let’s get this thing back on track.”
Casey brought a new style of play with him from what the Pistons were used to under Van Gundy. He’d rather not call set plays — he wants all his players, especially the guards — to read and react to any situation.
His starting point guard, Reggie Jackson, missed 37 games last season and spent most of the summer rehabbing his injured ankle. After an uneven start, Jackson is averaging 19.7 points per game over his last 10 contests, and the Pistons have won eight. He crushed the Cavs with 24 points in 21 minutes.
It took all the Pistons a while to catch on. They’re the second-worst shooting team overall this season (.440 field-goal percentage), but since Feb. 1 are ninth with a .473 shooting percentage.
“Coach believes in creating 3s,” said Smith, who’s averaging about four assists off the bench since Feb. 1. “I remember earlier in the season we were confused on what kind of 3s coach wanted. We just thought, let’s get 3s up. Coach wants created 3s, where you take it to the paint and you create 3s for other guys, And now I think our percentages are going up. When you come from one system to another, it takes a while to get comfortable with how one coach wants us to play.”
Smith, 30, is in his eighth season — third with Detroit. He was a rookie in 2011 with Memphis when he said the Grizzlies purposefully lost the final game of the regular season so they could take a step back in the standings and play the Spurs in the first round (which worked, Memphis advanced).
Smith’s been to the playoffs two other times but was also on the “trust the process” Sixers in 2015-16, when they won 15 games.
Advertisement
“When I was younger, in that moment, it was something where you’re naive and you just think the playoffs are like an invitation where you’re there every year,” he said.
Yes, Smith says the Pistons are shooting for the sixth seed now, instead of merely trying to make the playoffs, but he knows better than to make any guarantees. He also doesn’t want to sell the Pistons short.
“I don’t put any ceilings on what we could be,” Smith said. “It’s like with Boston when they lost Kyrie. We thought they would be bounced in the first round and they went to the Eastern Conference finals, Game 7. I don’t like putting ceilings on us, but I know there is another level.”
Evan Fournier and Nikola Vucevic have become close friends. Their years spent playing — and losing — together in Orlando forged that bond.
“When you play for five years with someone, obviously you get to know them,” Fournier said. “Lot of ups and downs, obviously more downs than ups. You get to know each other, and when you go through tough times together it brings you closer.
“So to have good moments with them would be definitely special.”
Fournier, 26, joined the Magic in 2014. Orlando was already two seasons into its rebuild at the time. Vucevic, 28, an All-Star this year, was traded to Orlando in 2012 by the Sixers. Both players — Fournier with the Nuggets and Vucevic in Philadelphia — briefly tasted the postseason before coming to the Magic.
Vucevic is the Magic’s leading scorer at 20.7 points, followed by Aaron Gordon (15.8 points) and Fournier (14.9). Gordon was drafted by Orlando in 2014; he’s also close to Fournier and Vucevic.
Together, the closest the three have ever been to eighth place this late in the season was 5.5 games out, and that was three years ago. Fournier and Gordon locker next to each other. Fournier and Vucevic dine together on the road. They order steaks and talk about life and about basketball.
Advertisement
Now, obviously, the conversation is different.
“Compared to last year, we’d be done already,” Fournier said. “We play with a different purpose. It’s that simple. I guess it’s hard to explain but everything counts. You wake up in the morning, that’s what you’re thinking about. It’s just a different feel. It just means more.”
Clifford, 57, was an assistant for the Magic the last time it reached the playoffs (coaching, among others, Detroit’s Ish Smith).
Like Detroit’s Casey, Clifford was fired by his old team last season. He took Charlotte to the playoffs twice in five seasons but was let go after the Hornets went 36-46 and he was forced to miss time due to health concerns.
Charlotte played Sunday and lost to Portland, otherwise it would be the Hornets in eighth with the Magic looking up at them.
“I don’t care who else makes it, as long as we’re one of the eight teams,” Clifford said. “There’s really three spots for six of us. It’s been like that for a good part of the year.”
The Magic beat the Golden State Warriors last week — a signature win for just about any team — and then went to Indiana and beat a feisty Pacers group that is still third in the East, even without Victor Oladipo.
“This is really the game that matters,” Orlando forward Jonathan Isaac said in a quiet Orlando locker room Sunday, about an hour before playing the Cavs. “The Indiana win doesn’t mean anything if we come and lose here.”
Isaac’s sentiment was pretty clear. The Cavs, who’ve represented the East the last four seasons in the finals, are bad now like the Magic were for years — way, way out of the playoff picture and planning those April vacations to Cancun. A good win over the Pacers doesn’t help if it’s followed by a loss to a team with nothing to play for, not when the race for the last couple of playoff spots in the East is so tight.
Advertisement
“We’ve got to be a team that capitalizes on games like this,” Gordon said. “This was an opportunity to get a substantial lead in the standings, and we’ve got to be ready to play every night.”
Not only did the Magic lose to the Cavs, but also their previous two losses were to the Knicks (second worst in the NBA, one slot behind Cleveland) and the Bulls (fourth worst).
At five games under .500, it’s hard to say Orlando had a “turning point.” It’s been a struggle, yes, though a weak bottom half of the bracket in the East gives the Magic a chance.
Orlando has largely won with defense. Rated ninth overall defensively, since Jan. 1, the Magic have the second-best defensive rating in the NBA (allowing) 106.3 points per 100 possessions. Defense let Orlando down in the fourth quarter against Cleveland, when the Cavs scored 40 points. The Magic were also 6-of-26 from 3-point range.
“We’re not blessed with great overall offensive talent,” Clifford said. “We’re just not. Tonight, for the first time in a long time, we just weren’t ready to play.”
After Sunday’s loss, in which Vucevic poured in 28 points to go with 13 boards, he plowed through two dozen wings and an order of fries from Quaker Steak & Lube, procured for him by the visiting locker room attendants.
It was not necessarily the best time to discuss realizing the playoff hopes he’s harbored in Orlando the last seven seasons. But, he said, “these games are more fun.”
“We’re playing for something,” Vucevic said. “You want to be in position where every game is a big game and you have to bring it every game and play at a high level. These games really matter. It’s much more fun than in the past; this time of year we’re ready to be done and planning our vacations.
“At the same time, it would be very disappointing if we don’t make it because we have a good chance.”
The Athletic’s James Edwards III and Josh Robbins contributed to this report.
(Top photo: Jason Miller / Getty Images)