Detroit Pistons’ Bickerstaff: ‘The Whistle Has Changed’ After Game 4 Loss

During game four, Cleveland Cavs guard Donovan Mitchell was oddly quiet in the first half with a four-point effort before dominating after halftime with 39 points to snag a victory over the Detroit Pistons by a 112-103 margin. 

But amid that offensive explosion in the second half, Mitchell began to make his way to the free throw line possession after possession. By the time the game ended, Mitchell had connected on 13 of his 15 free throw attempts, which means the dynamic scorer sank more shots from the charity stripe than the Pistons attempted as an entire team. 

“It’s unacceptable,” Pistons head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said after the game. “It is. We didn’t do enough obviously to help ourselves and I’ll start there, but ever since we came to Cleveland, the whistle has changed. There is no way that one guy on their team shoots more free throws than our team. We aren’t a settle team. We aren’t a jump-shooting team. We drive the ball, attack the paint, so what was done out there tonight, it’s frustrating, but we can’t allow that to be the reason why because we didn’t play well enough and play to the best of our capabilities.”

As a team, the Cavs shot nearly three times as many free throws as the Pistons the night, holding a 34-12 advantage in that realm, so Bickerstaff is not speaking from a position that is unsupported by facts– the Detroit coach has a point. 

“But again, you look at the foul count, you look at the disparity and that’s hard to overcome and you wonder the reason why,” Bickerstaff said. “It’s interesting since Kenny [Atkinson] made his comments publicly about us, the whistle has changed in this series.”

Now, it would be improper to blame the Pistons’ game four loss solely on the free throw breakdown when Mitchell went off for a 43-pointer on his own. After halftime, Cleveland raced out to a 22-0 run, and Detroit was simply never able to recover from that dramatic momentum shift in the final two quarters while playing on the road. 

“They came out and played with more force and tenacity than we did to start the [third] quarter,” Bickerstaff said. “We had a four point lead obviously, then they came out and were very aggressive on both ends of the floor. We just didn’t match it.”

From a personnel perspective, the Pistons opted to turn to Paul Reed more often throughout the second half, which was a decision that immediately paid dividends, but one could argue that B-Ball Paul should have received even more playing time on a night where Jalen Duren was utterly ineffective as a scorer and rebounder against the Cavs’ double-big lineup. 

In game four, Duren played 27 minutes but scored just eight points while grabbing two rebounds to continue the least productive stretch of the season for JD. Reed, on the other hand, put up 15 points, four rebounds and two assists in 14 minutes of work in an attempt to dig Detroit out of trouble. 

“I thought P Reed earned the opportunity to be on the floor,” Bickerstaff said. “He did a great job for us on both ends of the floor, doing the things that we needed him to do and he deserved the opportunity to play.”

Turnover problems plagued the Pistons on Monday night as well, and Detroit’s offense never looked in sync. Duren, Ausar Thompson and Duncan Robinson combined for just 16 points on the night, which is well below the level Detroit needs in order to take down a dangerous Cleveland squad on the road in the postseason. 

With the second round series deadlocked at two wins apiece, the Eastern Conference Semifinals will shift back to Detroit for game five on Wednesday, May 13. 

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