With Blake Griffin out, the Pistons were lucky that Joel Embiid was ruled out early Saturday. Unfortunately, Reggie Jackson has been struggling with back pain himself. Dwane Casey didn’t want to disturb chemistry too much and elected to bring Rose off the bench.
The Pistons started the game with Tim Frazier, Bruce Brown Jr, Tony Snell, Markieff Morris and Andre Drummond. That lineup struggled mightily on offense, scoring only two points before Luke Kennard came into the game to provide a scoring punch.