Central Notes: Cavs, Jenkins, Brown, Bickerstaff, Potter

Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson is mulling rotation changes after his second unit was gouged by the Pistons in a four-point loss on Sunday, Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com reports. Detroit staged a second-quarter rally and led the rest of the way.

“We gotta look at it,” Atkinson said when asked about some of the lineups used in the second quarter. “Obviously, wasn’t the right combination. Obviously, the bench play hurt us (Sunday).”

The second unit provided a spark last season, led by Ty Jerome, who signed with Memphis during the offseason. The Cavs have the NBA’s fourth least-productive bench this season.

“Maybe we keep two of our stars out there at the same time,” Atkinson said. “We’ve gotta help them. We started Sam (Merrill) tonight and that obviously hurts the bench, so we just gotta figure it out. It’s definitely, definitely hurting us in those minutes.”

Here’s more from the Central Division:

• Pistons two-way guard Daniss Jenkins fell one point short of the franchise record for points scored in a second quarter on Sunday. Jenkins racked up 21 points in those 12 minutes, making all seven of his field goal attempts, including six three-pointers. Jenkins also closed out the game with four free throws. Jenkins’ 21-point quarter was the highest scoring by a bench player in franchise history. “He was unbelievable,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff said, per Coty Davis of the Detroit News. “It’s the trust factor, we talk about it all the time. We have 18 guys on our roster that we believe in. We have 18 guys who we believe can help us win when we put them in the game. They know how to play Pistons’ basketball. They play unselfishly. They play with a high spirit. They have the confidence to go out and do what it takes to get it done.” Jenkins is a prime candidate to eventually receive a standard contract.
• Knicks head coach Mike Brown used to babysit Bickerstaff, James Edwards III of The Athletic reveals. They now coach the top two teams in the East. The Knicks and Pistons will square off for the first time since their playoff matchup last season on Monday. “He was strict,” Bickerstaff said. “He had a great way of making things fun but always organized and detailed. There weren’t going to be things that were missed, and he was scared to death of my dad (longtime NBA coach Bernie Bickerstaff). He wasn’t going to let anything happen to me.”
• Micah Potter, who signed a non-guaranteed contract with the Pacers late last month, was one of the 12 players named to the USA Select Team in June 2024 that scrimmaged against Team USA in Las Vegas prior to the Paris Olympics. He was also one of three players who stuck with the team as practice players through its July exhibition tour, an unforgettable experience for the big man. “That was the, hands down, coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Potter told Dustin Dopirak of the Indianapolis Star. “I had no idea that was gonna happen until my agent called me out of the blue. Going into that kind of environment — Kevin Durant said it’s the greatest team he’s ever played on, and so with that, you could argue it’s the greatest team ever assembled which is incredible. You go down the list and look at the names and it’s incredible. So being in that kind of an environment, you see how those kinds of guys prepare, right? You see how they approach the game, mentally and physically. It’s one of those things where you go into that environment — and I ended up playing, which is nuts too, getting on the floor with all of them — you learn to gain confidence.”