Detroit Pistons' Odd Mind Games Transforming LeBron James, Cavaliers into Beasts
Detroit Pistons point guard Reggie Jackson made it clear entering the playoffs that his team wanted to face Goliath.
His wishes have come true, as Detroit has woken a sleeping giant.
Jackson's Pistons, now down 2-0 to the No. 1-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers, continue to play a physical series conspicuously overshadowed by Detroit's foolish chatter. Already underdogs, the young Pistons are about to experience the wrath of a loaded Cavs team starved for a challenge.
After sleepwalking through stretches of the regular season, this series is just what the Cavaliers need. The talent has always been there, looking for a push, a spark of anything to awaken the beast within.
Now, the Pistons have provided just that.
Looking for a Fight
Remember that Cleveland stumbled through the first half of the 2014-15 regular season before eventually winning two Finals games without their second- and third-best players. After reaching the Finals last June, it was hard to identify much urgency this season for Cleveland.
The Cavs have held the No. 1 seed in the East since November, even while Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert recovered from surgeries. There were no major offseason additions to work into the system, no historic regular-season goals to accomplish. Keeping guys healthy seemed as much of a priority as winning ballgames.
Boredom seemed to creep in as the months wore on. Key matchups with the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs momentarily made things interesting but were virtually worthless in the standings.
"It’s tough. I think in some ways we wish we could fast forward," Kevin Love said in early March. "In a lot of ways you also have to respect the process."
It became frustrating to watch, as Cleveland would revert to lazy isolation situations and fall in love with the three-ball. LeBron James' odd tweets stole headlines, at times proving far more interesting than the actual play on the court.
Clearly, this was a team ready for the playoffs to start. It needed a challenge in the East, something to provide some life and spark unity.
Welcome, Detroit.
Veteran and Rookie Mistakes
Pistons head coach Stan Van Gundy's claim that the referees allow LeBron James to do what he wants has set a fascinating example for his younger players. Since those comments, nobody's been shy behind a microphone.
The most recent blurb has come from 19-year-old rookie reserve Stanley Johnson.
"He jabbers," Johnson said of James, per ESPN.com's Nick Friedell. "He moves his mouth sometimes. Their whole team does, kind of like their little cheerleaders on the bench."
This came on the heels of Johnson claiming he's in LeBron's head, despite a 27-point, 12-of-18 shooting performance from James. Cleveland took the first game 106-101 before blowing Detroit out in Game 2, 107-90.
If Johnson is indeed inside James' head, he might consider undermining rather than helping James. During the series, James is 7-of-9 shooting when Johnson is the primary defender, including a perfect 6-of-6 performance in Game 2, according to ESPN Stats & Information (via Friedell).
Thus far in the series, James is averaging 24.5 points, 6.0 rebounds, 7.0 assists and 2.5 steals on a sparkling 60.0 percent shooting mark from the field. Love, who's taken his share of cheap shots and elbows from Detroit defenders, is putting up 22.0 points and 11.5 rebounds while knocking down 46.7 percent of his three-pointers.
Despite being bodied up by the likes of Marcus Morris and Tobias Harris, Love has appeared more energized and engaged in this series than at any point in his Cavs career.
"My mentality was just to be aggressive and we have to do that the entire series," Love said after Game 1 when he went for 28 points and 13 rebounds. "Between Kyrie [Irving] and myself, we've had a lot of conversations about our playoff run being cut short, so more than anything, we looked at this as an opportunity."
Given all of this, one would think a rookie like Johnson would prefer to let his play do the talking. Fortunately for Cleveland, he doesn't appear to be done.
After calling the Cavs bench "little cheerleaders," the rookie went on to say, per Friedell, "They're always saying something like they're playing basketball, like they're actually in the game. There's only seven or eight players who play. I don't see why the other players are talking. They might as well just be in the stands, in my opinion."
This isn't just foolish, it's also wrong. Head coach Tyronn Lue has already used 10 different Cavs in his rotations, with 13 overall receiving at least some court time.
After his comments, Van Gundy admitted he had to pull his rookie aside for a talk, telling Steve Aschburner of NBA.com:
"Well look, you do [cringe at Johnson's comments] a little bit. But you have to realize he's a 19-year-old kid going through this for the first time. You get him right after a game like that, he's frustrated. We met, we talked. He knows how I feel, what my concerns are. But it wasn't an anger session. It wasn't a 'You're an [expletive]' type of thing. It wasn't. It's just another learning experience for a 19-year-old kid.
"
A war of words has never worked against James. Just ask DeShawn Stevenson. Or Joakim Noah. Or any one of these guys. All have tried to play mind games or get physical with James. A common theme? He knocked them all out of the playoffs, one by one. Johnson is just the next on his list.
Just the Beginning
As the series heads to Detroit, look for the Pistons to feed off the home-crowd energy. Guys like Johnson, Morris and Harris will once again get physical with James, Love and others in an attempt to wear them down and possibly steal a game.
For Detroit, this is their championship. For Cleveland, the goals are a bit bigger.
Coach Lue wants to make sure the Cavs keep their composure, no matter what tricks the opponent is trying to play. As he explained to Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com:
"They're going to try to junk the game up as much as possible and we have to keep our heads and keep playing. We can't get caught up in all the roughhousing and if we get a couple of bad calls here and there we have to continue to play through it. We can't get caught up like we did last year with the (Jae) Crowder incident and J.R. Smith getting suspended for two games. That took a toll on us. We have to be smarter than that. We're playing for much bigger things and we have to be smart.
"
Detroit, much like the Boston Celtics in the first round last year, knows it doesn't stand much of a chance. Overly physical play and trash-talking are weapons it must utilize to make up for a severe gap in talent.
Cleveland has to keep things as clean as possible and avoid injury and suspension at all costs. When the Cavs do eventually close out the series, they'll be taking a newly motivated group into the Eastern Conference Semifinals and beyond.
Greg Swartz is the Cleveland Cavaliers Lead Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @CavsGregBR.
Quotes obtained firsthand unless cited. Stats via Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise sourced.
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