Vince Ellis

Detroit Free Press

Andre Drummond has apologized to his teammates and said that his actions during the Detroit Pistons' playoff-clinching victory over the Washington Wizards on Friday night were “selfish.”

Drummond caused a local media storm by brooding during the Pistons’ 112-99 victory that earned the franchise’s first playoff berth since 2009.

Drummond made his comments today, after the Pistons concluded morning preparations for tonight’s regular-season home finale against the Miami Heat (7:30, FSD).

“Age doesn’t matter; I’ve been here for four years,” Drummond, 22, said. “That’s unacceptable what I did -- no matter what the circumstances were. So I did apologize, and something like that won’t happen again, because it was selfish on my part. I should have celebrated with my teammates.

“Everybody’s watching. All types of videos came out. I didn’t pay it any mind because I knew what was really going on with me, but to the untrained eye, it looked like something different.”

He stayed away from teammates during time-outs and, when the final horn sounded, Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy had to physically lift Drummond out of his chair to get him to join his celebrating teammates.

It’s the first playoff berth of his career, so Drummond’s reaction was curious. Drummond had to sit the final 8:41 of the fourth quarter because the Wizards started intentionally fouling the poor-foul-shooting Drummond.

The brooding caused some to speculate that Drummond was upset about being benched, but he denied that. He also said he was happy for the team.

He later took to Twitter to explain the reason for his dour mood, writing that his thoughts were on a friend who died weeks ago.

“On my part, it was selfish. But everybody has emotions and everybody goes through certain parts of their life, and when we won the game, that’s when it really hit me and couldn’t really control the feeling I had. But I did apologize for the way I acted,” Drummond said. “It looked a certain way, but it wasn’t.”

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Contact Vince Ellis at vellis@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @vincent_ellis56.