Recap: Gui, Jimmy, and Draymond win slugfest versus Detroit, 115-110

It took three hours, but the Dubs gut one out as Steph crosses 25,000 points scored.

I’m always fascinated about how different sports franchises maintain an identity over the course of years and years and years. For franchises like the Lakers, it makes sense – the Hollywood glitz means something to the players, they can always recruit players who want that, and it’s been owned by the Buss family for fifty years. They maintain an identity because the organization is substantially the same. Teams like the Timberwolves and the Kings have long histories of instability and incompetence (so did the Warriors!). It’s not impressive that rich people can be bad managers.

But certain franchises convey something in terms of actual playstyle, even without consistent voices. Take the Pistons: there’s no throughline in the organization from the 1980s to now, no voice, no dominant presence, not even a clear chain of mentorship. It’s not like the Pat Riley Heat. The Pistons fire their GM every four years like clockwork. They’re just a name, a jersey, and a city.

But still– the DNA of the Bad Boy Pistons, the Ben Wallace/Rasheed Wallace champions, even the kinda mediocre Blake Griffin/Reggie Jackson/Andre Drummond iteration, is somehow there. The Pistons always are gritty, mean, big, and defensively oriented. They slow the game down and hit you in the back of the head when you’re not looking. That’s always the Pistons. This franchise could never suffer a Mike D’Antoni team to live.

There’s a very tempting cliche to connect them to the city of Detroit itself, and it’s been done a million times so I’ll spare you. You know: blue collar… hard working… lunchpail… eugh. In reality it’s probably just the fact that the shadow of the Bad Boys looms so heavy over the franchise. But the Cade Cunningham Pistons, the best Pistons team in a generation (I’m not overstating that, this is probably going to end up being the best Pistons team since the Bush administration), feel like they’re pulling from so much franchise lore. Jalen Duren, Ron Holland, Ausar Thompson, especially Isiah Stewart – they all feel like Pistons Players. They play Pistons Basketball. They lead the league in fouls, they play physical, they fight. Yup, that’s the Pistons.

On Saturday night, the Warriors played a Detroit Pistons basketball game. The game tipped off at 5:30 and didn’t end until 8:30. A plodding, rough three-hours. Long replay reviews, both coaches’ challenges and a Isiah Stewart flagrant foul review, a foul basically every time they dribbled the ball up.

Every Warriors player got knocked in the head at least a few times. Not historically Warriors basketball. But this is a new team, with Jimmy Butler co-starring and significant roles open for gritty players like Gui Santos and Moses Moody and Quinten Post (Brandin Podziemski was absent with lower back soreness, but he’d fit into this too). The new-look Warriors can scrap with the best of 'em.

The Warriors quickly jumped out to a 9-0 run thanks to a couple of Quinten Post floaters, but the Pistons immediately came back to tie and the game settled into being a slugfest. The term “rock fight” gets thrown around a lot, including by Steve Kerr in his post-game comments, and that’s fitting: neither team would be able to get any sort of lead.

The Dubs played from behind for most of the night, but never significantly– the Pistons’ biggest lead was only five points. This game followed the strict logic of punch/counterpunch: the Warriors would make their move, get out to a two point lead, and then turn the ball over a few times or commit a couple fouls to put the Pistons back up by five. Neither team could get much purchase on the other.

There was an extra intensity to this game that felt a little playoffy — maybe the fact that these are two teams in the same position in the standings (the Warriors and the Pistons had the same record coming into the game, and both have sole possession of the sixth seed in their respective conferences) trying to prove to the world they were legit. Maybe it’s just the fact that the Pistons are physical as hell. And maybe I’m misinterpreting — when Jimmy Butler was asked about whether the game had playoff intensity, he shook his head and said that playoff intensity wouldn’t come until the playoffs.

Well, if that wasn’t Playoff Jimmy, Playoff Jimmy is going to be a killer. Butler had his best game in a Warriors uniform, ending with 26 points, nine rebounds, and five assists in 36 minutes. Whenever the Warriors looked like they were headed into one of their patented long scoring slumps, he settled things by muscling his way to the rim, probably getting fouled in the process.

Butler would also, unbelievably, take and make a couple of three-pointers (his first game as a Warrior with multiple three point makes!). The extra scoring helped get past an inefficient night by Steph — he would score 32, but on 4-of-15 three point shooting, reminiscent of those post-trade games where he was the only scorer on the roster.

While the stars were great, the story of the game has to be the role players continuing to ball out.

Gui Santos’ first really impressive game of the season came on January 9th, against these Detroit Pistons, five days after Jonathan Kuminga’s gnarly sprained ankle opened up time in the rotation. The shorthanded Warriors, wary of overtaxing Draymond, were suddenly desperate for depth at the power forward position. Gui was awesome, a complete game-changer with his energy, nose for getting deflections, and skilled rebounding.

At the time I was thrilled but a little skeptical — like, it’s easier to make hustle plays when you’re not playing much, but it can be a lot more difficult to keep up that level of energy when you’re playing 20+ minutes per game. All Gui Santos has done since then has proven me wrong. He’s played himself into a position where you simply cannot take him out of the rotation again.

On Saturday, Gui was absolutely electric. He played excellent defense, he rebounded, he made a three, he didn’t turn the ball over. He knew his role and played it incredibly well. The turning point of the game came in the fourth quarter, when, after Steph missed a shot, Gui cut to the ricocheting ball, rose up over Ausar Thompson (an insane feat), caught the ball one-handed and laid it back into the hoop, coming back down square on his back. He popped back and screamed at the Chase Center crowd.

I love a young player with a nose for the moment, and man, Gui’s got it. He’s so fun.

Immediately after the play, Steph shimmied his way over a little too close to the Pistons’ bench. Isiah Stewart, who is always mad about something, took offense and pushed him away, leading to a quick yelling match that had to be separated by old friend and Pistons assistant coach Luke Walton. Stewart flashed the too-small at Steph, which, I’m sorry man, you can’t do that from the bench when you’re not playing.

The two final heroes of the night would end up being Draymond Green and Moses Moody. On the final real possession of the game, with Santos fouled out and the Warriors trailing by one with 45 seconds left, Draymond pulled up in Jalen Duren’s face, knocking down a clutch three to put the Warriors back on top. As always, he makes him when he has to.

Coming back down the other direction, Moody used his length to disrupt his old high school roommate Cade Cunningham’s dribble, coming up with a massive steal to seal the game. I don’t want to underrate how rock-solid Moody’s been — Cade is the exact sort of guard that Moody can be exceptionally annoying to, and he played impressive defense all night. Cade is great and had a great game regardless, but Moody was key to keeping “great” from becoming “tremendous”.

Stray Observations:

• Gui Santos’s one big drawback is that he fouls, a lot. Which is fine in small doses, but if he’s gonna play this well the Warriors need him to stay on the floor. Now that he’s becoming a 25 minute per game player that cameos in closing lineups, that’s a problem he needs to be working on. He fouled out with a minute to go in this one with just 26 minutes played.

• There were just too many fouls in general this game. It was equal on both sides, so I don’t think it was unfair, but I truly hate to watch a game with 77 free throws. And I say that as a fan of Jimmy Butler III. I know I’m a hypocrite.

• After the game, Kerr was asked about how he plans to fit Kuminga into a group on such a hot streak. He responded that he’s going to ease him in in small doses. It’s becoming an impossible problem to solve, because you can’t really be cutting Santos and Moody’s playing time if they’re going to be folk heroes every game. I do think these things tend to work themselves out, but I’ve also been saying that for the past two years and there’s still a logjam.

• Very strange Chase Center game. Late in the first quarter, the fire alarm went off in the building and the game was paused as the crowd milled around deciding whether or not to run screaming into the night. After the all-clear, the PA system was completely out for most of the second quarter, and the game was played with no music or announcements. The effect made me a little nostalgic for The Bubble, but then I remembered what The Bubble was actually like and thought better of it.