As Detroit Pistons forward Tobias Harris spoke with reporters, teammate Avery Bradley listened from across the home locker room at Little Caesars Arena.

And when Bradley’s turn came moments later, he made a point to slightly contradict Harris’ assessment of the 97-86 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday night before a crowd generously counted at 13,709.

Harris spoke of missed shots.

Bradley spoke of getting stops.

“It’s a maturity thing, when you miss a shot, you have to go down and get three stops in a row,” Bradley said. “That has to be your mindset as a team. We’ll get there. We understand that and this was a great test for us tonight. We understand we’re not going to make shots every single night.

“I think I heard Tobias say it would have been a different game if we made some shots, but it would have been a different game if we got some stops as well.”

More Pistons:

Detroit Pistons hope new practice facility becomes hub of New Center neighborhood

Detroit Pistons' Van Gundy OK with starters, still shuffling bench

For the second straight game, the Pistons (2-2) fell behind by 20-plus in the first half — proving that even a sparse crowd can be heard when producing boos.

The deficit was 21 points against the 76ers (1-3), who picked up their first win of the young season.

The Pistons pulled to within four points at 90-86 on Reggie Jackson’s floater with 3:12 remaining.

But with too much Joel Embiid (30 points, nine rebounds) and Ben Simmons (21 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists), the Pistons were unable to overcome the deficit.

It’s only four games into the season, so it’s not panic time.

But there was a sense urgency in the locker room to nip the slow-start trend in the bud.

“Soon as we started the game, we didn’t bring enough energy that we needed to,” Tobias Harris said. “I think a lot of that had to deal with the ball not going in the basket for us in the first quarter and things of that nature. It’s something as a team that we have to build on and be able to be a defense-first team.”

Point guard Reggie Jackson (16 points, seven assists and five rebounds) said it all starts with him.

“Being the leader of this team, I got to lead us and I got to be better to get us off to a better start,” Jackson said. “Whatever it takes. If it takes getting us more riled up, we’re going to go back to the drawing board and try to get off to a better offensive start, as well as defensive.”

Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy said he needed to do a better job.

He couldn’t find any answers for Simmons or a struggling offense that shot 38.8% from the field and 20% from the three-point line.

“Simmons, I’m going to take the blame on that one,” Van Gundy said. “I am, because I just didn’t find an answer with him at all, I did not.

“I’m not trying to protect anybody. There are things that guys could have done better game plan wise, but I did a really, really poor job in terms of Simmons.

“It’s frustrating and I didn’t do a very good job offensively, either.”

Van Gundy still is scrambling when it comes to the rotation.

Langston Galloway (nine points on three triples) shot the ball well, but Van Gundy never went back to him when he left the game in the second half because of bleeding.

Van Gundy admitted that was a mistake. But he would only go so far in taking the blame.

The slow starts had him mention tweaking the starting rotation – even as he struggles with the playing rotation.

“It’s a little bit mind-boggling, two games in a row where we really weren’t ready,” Van Gundy said. “I didn’t think we played as hard we were capable of at the start of the game, so we have to figure that out — whether it’s those five guys, changing their mindset or whether we have to change the lineup to get some guys in there who can be ready to go at the beginning of the game.”

Quotable: “When we started the game, he was being aggressive and he was talking, too. So what I like (in my mind) you want to do that? I'm going to kick your ass then. So that's what I did.” Embiid on Pistons center Andre Drummond.

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