DETROIT — The Detroit Pistons locker room is full of nasty dawgs.
“We all nasty dawgs, nasty boys, whatever you want to call it, that’s us.” two-way guard Daniss Jenkins said Friday after Detroit’s ninth straight win. “A bunch of mutts. You don’t want no mutt in your house, do you? Nobody likes mutts.”
It hasn’t really mattered who is out on the court for the Pistons through the first few weeks of the season as the team has been without numerous of its top playmakers and they’re still thriving behind an unparalleled mindset of physical, gritty and energetic basketball.
After a trip to the playoffs last season, the Pistons hoped to capitalize on their momentum and become a threat in the Eastern Conference and a team that nobody wants to face.
As the Pistons charge out to an 11-2 record, leading the conference by 2.5 games, their culture of unselfish and tough play is bringing just that. And to the Detroit players, second-year coach J.B. Bickerstaff might be the biggest dawg of them all.
“He’s a dawg, too,” veteran forward Isaiah Stewart said. “The way he relies on defense, grit...having him with this system, it fits Detroit basketball perfectly.”
Bickerstaff isn’t out on the court taking buzzer-beating half court shots like Jenkins or delivering momentum-shifting blocks like Stewart, but he exemplifies the spirit that’s led to Detroit’s success so far this season.
He’s active on the sideline, constantly communicating with his players and driving them to play smarter and harder.
The Pistons want to be known as a team that doesn’t back down from anything. Missing their top four scorers, including All-NBA guard Cade Cunningham, in back-to-back games would’ve made losing to either the Chicago Bulls or Philadelphia 76ers this week an understandable result.
But the Pistons continue to grind out wins and are off to their best start since 2005.
“The character of our guys leads me to believe that they can do anything. The trust that they have in one another, they’ve just got a nastiness to them,” Bickerstaff said Friday. “That’s the fun part about our group is they like it when it gets thick. They like it when it gets messy and it gets ugly. That’s where they thrive.
“We like to take people there. We like to push people’s buttons and see how they respond. What our guys have proven, which is a step for us this year, is that we can control our emotions and control the chaos when we get to it.”
Having a coach that embraces the passion players want to compete with sets the Pistons apart.
It’s come with its struggles as Detroit remains one of the most-penalized teams in the league with 23.6 personal fouls per game — which ranks 28th in the NBA. But the team is learning to be smarter about limiting their unnecessary fouls and live with calls where they were playing their physical style and the whistle didn’t go their way.
It has also led the Pistons to own one of the top defenses in the NBA with a defensive rating of 109.5 and the league’s best rim protection with a 55.6 defended field goal percentage on shot inside six feet from the basket.
With multiple players missing in every game so far and only one player who has started every game for the Pistons — Duncan Robinson — there has been no fall off in terms of adding wins to their early-season total.
That’s resulted in the Pistons earning quite a lot of, as Bickerstaff puts them, identity wins.
“It speaks to the guys’ willingness to do things and go places that other people aren’t willing to do and aren’t willing to go,” Bickerstaff said Wednesday after beating the Bulls. “We’ve got a locker room full of guys that will do that. Man down over and over again, but everybody found a way to step up and contribute.”
After years spent trying to recapture an identity of success, the Pistons are showing they’ve found one and the coach that brought it to Detroit has the team humming early in their second season together.
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