The Pistons face at least two more critical games of the 21 remaining while counting on players Stan Van Gundy never expected would determine their playoff fate.

Stanley Johnson is still feeling discomfort in the right shoulder he sprained 11 days ago in a win at Cleveland. Anthony Tolliver isn’t close to returning from the right knee he sprained 12 days ago. Jodie Meeks has been cleared to return after the bone broken in his right foot back in October was declared mended, but when he’ll be game ready remains murky.

So Darrun Hilliard and Reggie Bullock are the two backups at shooting guard and small forward. The backup power forward with Tolliver out will continue to be Justin Harper, signed to a second 10-day contract on Friday after helping the Pistons to a big win earlier this week with three 3-pointers in the rout of Toronto, though Marcus Morris will continue to pull double duty: starter at small forward, support system at power forward for Tobias Harris.

“We didn’t really have another better alternative and he’s played pretty well when he’s played,” Van Gundy said of Harper.

There’s no serious structural damage to Johnson’s shoulder, yet it hasn’t responded as the Pistons hoped it would, leaving them without the player who’s served as backup to both Morris and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in a three-player rotation at those two positions since early in the season.

“I don’t know what you would call it, but he hasn’t really progressed the way we would like,” Van Gundy said. “He’s feeling discomfort. When they look in there, there’s nothing more going on. But he’s not feeling comfortable and so that’s where it is right now.”

The wave of injuries has a ripple effect that complicates Meeks’ return, too, Van Gundy said.

“He practiced today, but he’s done no five on five or nothing competitive,” he said. “And I don’t know when we’ll get to that because we’re so far down in people. When Brandon (Jennings) was coming back, we had enough guys we could go four on four full court at the end of practice. I really can’t do that now. It’s not going to be an easy road back for him to get ready to play.”

And with every game critical – the teams currently occupying the fifth through 10th spots in the Eastern Conference standings, six teams for four playoff spots, all have between 28 and 30 losses – Van Gundy can’t afford to ease Meeks back and live with rust-induced gaffes.

The Pistons had their four-game win streak snapped at San Antonio on Wednesday, playing a superb offensive first half against the NBA’s No. 1 ranked defense before being held to 30 points on 25 percent shooting after halftime. A lack of ball movement – a recurring theme throughout the season for a team ranked 30th in percentage of assisted baskets – reared its head again, Van Gundy said. Why it happens confounds him.

“All I know is when it starts for us, a lot of times it never stops,” he said. “Once one guy’s not moving it, then the next guy’s not moving it and then we’re ending up in a one-on-one game. I don’t know why it starts, but when it does we have a hard time getting ourselves out of it.”

Not for lack of attention or intent. Van Gundy makes quick use of timeouts at the first sign of trouble – and not just to point it out, but to go to plays he hopes will address the issue.

“Make ’em aware of it and try to call plays that hopefully require us to move the ball a little, but we really didn’t move the ball the other night,” he said. “It wasn’t that we didn’t try to move the ball. We watched some film today. We actually did get the ball side to side, but then with 12 seconds on the clock, 10 seconds to go on the clock, we just went one on one and took bad shots instead of having the patience to make one more pass. We tried to run out stuff; we just gave up on it too early.”

It was one pretty bad half against the runaway NBA leader in defense amid a five-game stretch – coinciding with Harris joining the starting lineup – of the best 3-point shooting and highest assist totals of their season. For the sake of their playoff chances, the Pistons need to make sure it was nothing more than a 24-minute blip.