In their second season under Stan Van Gundy, the Detroit Pistons improved from a 32-win also-ran to a respectable-as-heck 44-38 squad. They scrapped, and made opponents miserable with a steady diet of high pick-and-rolls run by smooth-scoring point guard Reggie Jackson and rim-rocking monster center Andre Drummond. They got better by prioritizing little fundamental things and repeatedly hammering them home, a brick-by-brick build-up in the image of their coach, who knows a thing or two about bleepin’ masonry.
With Jackson in his first full year at the controls, Detroit took care of the ball, posting the NBA’s eighth-lowest turnover rate and allowing its fifth fewest points off turnovers.