McDyess effect: More pep to their step

The loss of Antonio McDyess set off a ripple effect that threw the Pistons out of their orbit for the past few weeks, so the news that McDyess would return to them as soon as the 30-day window that barred his return opens began to set things right.

A day after the Pistons lost at home by 26 to the 2-9 Minnesota Timberwolves, the mood was decidedly upbeat at their practice facility.

"You saw guys had a little more pep to their step today and were a little more talkative," Michael Curry said after conducting a nearly three-hour practice heavy on defensive instruction. "I told them, we've been walking around for a week or so like a cloud was over us. Even when we won in LA and won at home against Cleveland, we didn't have that feel or look like everything was good. So today, they kind of had that look - which was surprising coming off a loss like that but not surprising when you realize that they realize they're getting Dice back."

The loss of McDyess spawned many trouble spots.

• It not only reduced Curry's stable of big men to four - Rasheed Wallace, Jason Maxiell, Kwame Brown and Amir Johnson - but it left Wallace as the only one among them who represents a perimeter scoring threat. That meant heavy minutes for Wallace. The Pistons hope to keep Wallace to about 30 minutes a game. He's at 36, which is the most he's played since he was 27 years old.
• Without McDyess' scoring punch to bring off the bench to start the second quarter, the Pistons were digging a hole for themselves in many games heading into halftime. Through 13 games, the Pistons have been outscored by 49 points in second quarters.
• Because Curry needed to keep another scorer on the floor whenever he would sit Wallace, that meant heavier minutes in many games for Tayshaun Prince, Allen Iverson and Rip Hamilton - at the expense of Arron Afflalo and other bench players Curry is trying to develop and heavy ready for the postseason.
• Without McDyess to spread the floor, the Pistons' new-found ability to break down defenders that Iverson, Rodney Stuckey and Will Bynum provide is muted.

"(McDyess' return) is good for us defensively and offensively," Wallace said. "Dice is another big in there who can shoot it on the perimeter and another rebounding big. It'll help Allen, also, because he's a driver. With that floor being spread, he's got the pick of the litter to go to - myself, Rip, Tay and now with Dice coming back."

Curry and his players aren't deluding themselves into thinking that the return of McDyess solves all of their problems. They've been out of sync offensively since swapping out Chauncey Billups for Iverson and their defense has only rarely been stout. But in addition to dealing with the trade fallout and the significant change that the Billups-to-Iverson transition requires, Curry's been dealing with a travel schedule that made meaningful practices all but impossible.

So ... back to basics on Monday.

"It was funny," Curry said. "Every defensive drill we did, three minutes into it - all of them were 10-minute segments - we started getting really good at it. That just shows how much slippage we had. Normally you can jump right into a drill. A lot of the stuff we're doing defensively, Allen hadn't done and a lot of our guys had slipped. I didn't see that whupping we got yesterday coming, but I did see a lot of slippage and wanted to get practice time.

"We camouflaged it with made shots against LA, Golden State, Cleveland. We just made shots. We still gave up 47, 48, 49 percent shooting and that's not going to be who we are as the season goes on."

Restoring soundness defensively will give the Pistons some margin for error for an offense that right now could use it. Ask Curry where the Pistons are on a scale of 1 to 10 on the continuum of the Iverson transition - 10 being fully integrated - and here's what he says: "I think we're about a 2 or 3 of where we're going when it's all said and done.

"We've got 82 regular-season games so how many more. Sixty-nine? One thing I knew coming into this position, what you're going to be judged on here is what you do in the postseason. You may take lumps doing things a certain way throughout the regular season. The reality is that the addition of Allen, especially having Dice back, the extended minutes for guys like Amir, Afflalo, Stuckey and all of those guys, all of those things are going to help us be better in April, May and June. I feel if they're better, we're going to be better and we can handle situations better. But we can't expect them to step up big at that time if they haven't been given opportunities during the year.

"Are we going to have growing pains when we go through that? Yeah, we are. Guys have to be better. Guys have to keep getting better defensively. Today, with the news of Dice and the practice we had, is a step in that direction."

---

Questions and comments on Keith's posts can be submitted via the Pistons Mailbag. Click here to submit your question.

Click here to return to Pistons.com