It took this Pistons a little over seven minutes before they scored their first basket of the game, a cruddy Reggie Jackson pullup jimbo. I know it sucks to find out your star player, in this case Blake Griffin, isn’t playing right before the game, but it shouldn’t mess you up enough to cause you to be literally unable to score, right? I blame Thon Maker, and I will never not blame Thon Maker. If the Bucks fail to win the championship this year, it will be his fault.
Luckily for the Pistons, the Trailblazers were barely any better on offense, and the first quarter ended 11-14 favoring Portland, hardly a tragedy in terms of winning chances, but a tragedy for the viewers. I thought we were in a new, modern era of NBA offenses where games under 100 are rare and games under 90 are basically unheard of? I was box-score watching this game, so I was immune to the detrimental effect of all those bricks, but I was starting to feel sympathy for all the good people who spent real money and wasted real time sitting in the arena just to see two teams decide that going back to the mid 00’s in terms of scoring was a good idea.
Things somehow picked up after the first half, the Pistons almost got 100 (which is a god-damn miracle), and Jackson managed 28 points all by himself. Perhaps someone told him that there were a few Pistons legends in attendance (was that Bill Laimbeer they were talking to?) and that Pistons legends didn’t like having their time wasted with unexciting basketball.