The Detroit Pistons entered tonight with three starters missing, including a late scratch of superstar lead guard Cade Cunningham. While Cunningham, Jalen Duren and Tobias Harris sat in street clothes, the Pistons played a little street ball in a 108-93 win over the Chicago Bulls. It was always destined to be decided by chaos ball, but that clearly wasn’t the game plan early on for Detroit. In the first half, the Pistons executed a slow, conservative game plan. Essentially, it was bring the ball up the floor, feed Isaiah Stewart inside, and let the big man put in work against tissue soft Nikola Vucevic. Honestly, it worked pretty well. For Stewart, anyway. He scored 17 points in the first half and had a career-high 31 points by the final whistle. But the lethargic pace seeped into Detroit’s defense, and it just wasn’t clicking. Detroit entered halftime with a 52-50 lead, and neither side was asserting itself. The Pistons were thankful for Beef Stew and Chicago needed Ayo Dosunmu to do all the heavy lifting with 15 points through two quarters. Detroit went down quick in the third quarter as Chicago started hitting shots and Detroit looked more and more dysfunctional. Chicago eventually stretched the lead to seven and then Detroit decided conservative just wasn’t working. They turned to chaos. And when you want some chaos, you take the shackles off of Ron Holland and Daniss Jenkins. The fourth quarter belonged to the bench for the Pistons. Detroit held Chicago to 16 points in the final frame and Jenkins went from his traditional role of explosive scorer to maestro with the ball in his hands. Jenkins had 15 assists off the bench for the Pistons, the most since Ish Smith in 2017. He also had six rebounds, just one turnover, and on a night when he was just 1-of-6 from the floor, he was a plus-20. He was the juice Detroit needed to put this game away. Holland, meanwhile, played ferocious defense, and it seemed to wake up the rest of the nasty dog crew on the bench. Javonte Green suddenly locked in, and he started getting deflections, steals, and transition buckets seemingly at will. He finished with 11 points and four steals. On a night when the team was short-handed, the Pistons’ depth shined through again. Little-used rookie Chaz Lanier got some minutes tonight, and even he delivered. He entered tonight playing 141 minutes, almost all in garbage time. He entered early in the third quarter tonight and promptly hit a three. He hit another a few minutes later. He even hit a middie after hard closeouts. It was his first night playing more than four minutes since mid-November when the Pistons’ injuries were at their worst. He ended up playing 12 minutes of real game action tonight and finished with eight points. He was a critical component to another Pistons win. It’s just that kind of season in Detroit. The win was the fourth in five games for Detroit. Their home stand continues Saturday when they play the Los Angeles Clippers. Detroit will be looking for a bit of revenge since the Dec. 28 loss at the hands of the Clippers where Kawhi Leonard dropped a career-high 55 points. ...read more read less