Andre Drummond and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope Lead Pistons To Narrow Win Over Boston

This season, there was a conspicuous absence in Detroit: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope‘s shooting touch. Through the Pistons’ first 20 games, the guard averaged 12.7 points on 38.2 percent shooting in Detroit’s first 20 games, including just 29.2 percent on 3-pointers. Wednesday night was a different story though as he led his team to a narrow victory over the Boston Celtics.

Caldwell-Pope scored a career-high 31 points while going 10-16 from the floor; he also hit three of four shots from three-point range. “I’d say his shot is definitely back,” coach Stan Van Gundy said. “We were pretty comfortable that he would start making shots again, but it is definitely nice to see them going in.”

“I never lost confidence in myself, because I know offense is one of those things that comes and goes,” Caldwell-Pope said. “I just kept playing hard on defense and stuck to my routine. I knew I would start hitting shots at some point.”

The Pistons would need everyone of the guard’s points to survive the night; they were leaky defensively, especially in a 34-33 fourth quarter. They were also helped by 16 points from Andre Drummond, including a half-court buzzer beater.

“This is the second game in a row where we haven’t been able to stop anyone down the stretch,” Van Gundy said. “We were lucky that our offense was good all night, because they were scoring at will.”

Photo: Andre Drummond #0 of the Detroit Pistons shoots over Thabo Sefolosha #25 of the Atlanta Hawks at Philips Arena on October 27, 2015 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Article by Joe Kozlowski