Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy is promising another change in the starting lineup tonight, relays Rod Beard of The Detroit News. Van Gundy made the announcement after this morning’s shootaround, although he refused to say what the change will be. He shook up the rotation a week ago by making Jon Leuer a starter, and Leuer has joined Reggie Jackson, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Marcus Morris and Andre Drummond in the starting five during Detroit’s past three games.
There’s more from the Central Division:
- Reggie Bullock is making progress from meniscus surgery and will start non-contact five-on-five drills Saturday, Beard tweets. Van Gundy said the small forward should be ready to return in about two weeks.
- The Pistons didn’t get the boost they expected when point guard Reggie Jackson returned from a battle with knee tendinitis that sidelined him for six weeks, notes Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post. After going .500 without Jackson, the team has had difficulty adjusting to having him back on the court. “When I came back, I think I had one practice in general, so I didn’t have a lot of time to really get footing with my teammates and myself and know where I was at,” Jackson said. “So these games have been my practice and I’m just trying to get better daily.”
- Pacers star Paul George calls this “one of the most frustrating seasons” that he has been through in a video posted on the team’s website. The Pacers were expected to be contenders after adding Jeff Teague, Thaddeus Young and Al Jefferson during the offseason, but have stumbled to a 15-18 start and are 10th in the Eastern Conference. “Maybe I’m just living in the past of how good we used to be, the personnel, the guys I had around,” George said. “I’m still living in that moment, maybe. I gotta put myself into a different team and maybe I have to do more, maybe that’s just what it is, maybe I have to do more now. But whatever is, I’m going to figure it out.”
- Since he was in college, Cavaliers guard Kay Felder has been getting advice from the Celtics’ Isaiah Thomas, relays Chris Fedor at cleveland.com. An All-Star despite his 5’9″ stature, Thomas has been an inspiration to other small guards. “Basically said be you,” Felder said of Thomas’ message. “Do what you do. Do what got you here. I’m a scorer and assist type of guy so don’t let anybody change my game.”
Pistons will eventually have to look at SVG as the problem. His style tends to grate on players and they tune him out after a while and begin to regress. They also have a bunch of average players at every position…some are even backup quality.
Totally disagree. Their roster is good enough to be a lot better. They haven’t knocked down shots at the rate they probably should, and they just haven’t been consistent defensively. Stanley Johnson not playing a bigger role probably hurts them with that. Harris, Morris, and Johnson are all 4s. Reggie Jackson hasn’t played well since coming back, and since he is the primary ballhandler, that’s a lot of possessions where you come up empty
Again…the Pacers can’t play defense. They have too many small combo guards and bigs that are strict 5s. I’d try a different rotation to try to get a little more balance out there
pacers roster is gud… they just need sum 1 to minipulat it