I think it’s completely fair to say that Ish Smith won this game for the Pistons. He was put into the game halfway through the third with the Pistons down by fourteen points, played the rest of the game, and the Pistons won by seven.
The playoff seeding scenarios, as I’ve mentioned before, are too complicated for me to parse even though there’s only one night left in the season. If I ever insinuated that I was smart enough to understand those things, I apologize, because I absolutely am not. The only thing I’m smart enough to do is edit together highlight clips like a robot and then talk trash in the video description. However, I do know that this was an important game for the Pistons to win. It (probably) improves their chances of making the playoffs by a lot.
Back to Ish. Not only did the Pistons erase a large deficit while he was in, but he personally took over the game in the last few minutes by taking (and making) a bunch of swaggy jumpers that were reminiscent of the late great Pistons legends Brandon Jennings. In an alternate universe were those shots had been missed, fans would be calling for Ish’s head, blaming the playoff-hopes-crushing loss on his poor shot selection. Instead, he’s the hero, everybody hates Reggie Jackson again, and the natural order of the universe is restored (except I still love Jennifer but can never be with her).