Detroit Pistons head coach J.B. Bickerstaff made headlines with a rather innocuous comment after losing to the Heat on Sunday night
With a fourth consecutive loss capping off a particularly challenging week of Pistons basketball, Detroit has watched its lead in first place of the Eastern Conference shrink to just 2.5 games. At the same time, the Boston Celtics have surged in second place at 43-21, and the C’s recently received a huge boost when Jayson Tatum rejoined the team over the weekend.
After the Pistons’ 121-110 loss to the Miami Heat on Sunday night, Detroit head coach J.B. Bickerstaff was asked to comment on how his team’s struggles coincide with the Celtics’ recent success, and his quote has already made waves– for the wrong reasons.
“It’s the NBA, right?” Bickerstaff began. “You look at the season, it’s long, everybody goes through difficult times or goes through a little bit of a rut, and we just found ours right now. Again, we’ve got plenty of time to do what we’ve got to do. Boston, obviously, is a good team, but we're not concerned about Boston. Our biggest concern is making sure that we’re doing what we need to do to go out and be as good as we possibly can. We’ve got plenty of time to figure it out, and we will.”
On the surface, Bickerstaff provided a reasonable, measured assessment of where the Pistons are at in the season while stressing that his primary concern is in-house.
Bickerstaff cannot single-handedly influence the direction of the Celtics’ season, but he can help guide the Pistons in a direction that improves upon their results over the last four games.
After Detroit’s loss to the Heat, the national media ran with Bickerstaff’s post-game presser quotes as a sign of dismissal for the squad that Joe Mazzulla is molding into a serious contender once again in Boston. Instead, the All-Star coach’s comments should more accurately be construed as a heliocentric approach to Pistons basketball.
Right now, the Pistons are battling to keep home court through the first three rounds of the playoffs should they advance that far, but the Celtics are quickly catching up to a position atop the conference that Detroit has held since the 11th game of the regular season. Still, Bickerstaff is undeterred in his belief for what the Pistons can accomplish when they’re faced with a challenge.
“I give our guys a ton of credit for being where we are right now,” Bickerstaff said. “This is the first time, really, this year that we’ve hit somewhat of a bump in the road and it’s good for us. The adversity is good for us. It’s only going to bring us tighter together, this group has proven that. So, there’s just opportunity for growth, opportunities for lessons, and we’ll be just fine. Again, that’s why I give our guys so much credit is because of their ability to figure things out. This is a great test for us with 19, 20 games left to be able to figure it out and learn from it. So, we’re going to be just fine, and the guys never waver. We’ve got another one on Tuesday that we’ll go out and get.”
As opposed to the dismissive narratives that were spun by the national media, Bickerstaff’s message after Sunday’s game is wholly in line with where his priorities should be– on the Pistons.
Detroit has a day off on Monday to regroup from what was a chaotic week of basketball before turning their attention back to the Brooklyn Nets for a 7:30 pm road contest on Tuesday, March 10.
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