As much as I don’t like the Bulls of Chicago, anyone who is judging outside of the 68 minutes we all witnessed can shut the fuck up: WOW, what a battle.
The Pistons fittingly won a gladiator affair, being as they are the one franchise distinctly known for toughness, ranking their Midwestern counterpart. NEVER forget who taught Michael Jordan and co. everything they know about defense.
Last night, it just wouldn’t end. Andre Drummond hung in there with five fouls accumulated by the ten minute mark in the 4th quarter. He lasted until one minute left in the last overtime, then fouled out. Within the next minute, so did Marcus Morris and Stanley Johnson.
The Pistons faced a similar test Monday against the Clippers. The more experience you gain, and ultimately, the more you lose, the more you will grow. In kung fu, they relish an opportunity to improve from an ass-beating. In America, we are so afraid of the label, “loser,” but it’s an illusion. Look at how poor the Warriors are handling ONE loss.
Instead of making a child’s game so personal, you just analyze what went wrong and next time, your nerves will calm and you’ll correct the play. We should have closed LA out, but we learned from it. And I think it prepared us well for this win.
As my Clippers found out, the road in Chicago is pretty home-favored. Some sketchy calls might have won it for us earlier, especially at the end of the second overtime. Reggie Jackson looked to draw contact from Derrick Rose, to no avail.
But it was Jackson, who like several Pistons logged 50+ minutes, that carried us in the final five minutes aka the 4th overtime. He scored 13 points! He could not be stopped and Detroit stormed to an early seven-point lead. We rode that advantage with Gs fouling out, hanging on to win by one possession.
This is the 13th quadruple overtime game EVER. There aren’t enough records going back beyond 1951 to know for sure, but in the last sixty plus seasons, over 80,000 different times teams played, that’s the 13th ever to last that long. Very rare.
Drummond finished with over 30 & 20. He was one of five players on the two teams to score over 30, tying an NBA-record. He’s also recorded over 20 rebounds more than anyone else against Chicago in the last 20 years with five such times. Wow.