SAN ANTONIO – Perhaps the Pistons took their new-found offensive cohesion for granted after a first half that gave no hints the rhythm they’d found since Tobias Harris joined the lineup was vulnerable to the NBA’s top-ranked defense.

The four straight wins that included KOs of the East’s top two teams, Cleveland and Toronto, came by an average of 13 points. Three-point shooting and assists were way up, both the fruits of much crisper ball movement. All five starters scored in double figures in all four wins.

Nothing changed for 24 minutes at San Antonio, where a defense that holds a wider statistical gap on No. 2 than Golden State’s offense on its closest competitor was gashed for 51 points on .524 shooting and 14 assists.

And then …

“The ball just stuck,” Reggie Jackson said of a second half in which the Pistons made nine baskets, shot 25 percent and had more turnovers (seven) than assists (five) in scoring 30 points on quarters of 14 and 16. “They’re the best defensive team in the league, so they made us pay for not really making them work.”

San Antonio led by a point at halftime despite Andre Drummond being limited to less than nine minutes when he picked up two fouls before the eight-minute mark of the first quarter. And it took terrific shooting by Kawhi Leonard, who hit 8 of 11 mostly mid-range jump shots in scoring 17 points, to lift the Spurs to their one-point lead.

But they scored on their first four possessions of the second half, looking very much like a team that came into the game 28-0 at home this season, and Stan Van Gundy was forced into a timeout less than three minutes into the third quarter.

“We just quit moving the ball in the second half,” Van Gundy said as the Pistons fell to 31-30 but held on to the No. 8 playoff spot in the East thanks to Chicago’s loss at Orlando. “We weren’t ready to play to start the third quarter. They came out with a lot more energy. We were walking around and then we just quit playing together. The ball didn’t move. We wouldn’t go to second and third options. We really didn’t have a guy in that starting unit who played good basketball in the second half and played unselfishly. It got contagious and it was a bad, bad half.”

Any chance the Pistons had to survive a defensive dogfight was undermined by the brilliance of San Antonio’s forward combination of Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge. They’re the new torch bearers for the Spurs dynasty with Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, though still excellent, sliding into complementary roles along with perhaps the league’s deepest bench, augmented by the arrival of veteran point guard Andre Miller.

Leonard and Aldridge combined to take 38 of San Antonio’s 84 shots, making 23 of them. For all of the NBA’s complexities, the game often comes down to the ability to make tough shots. Leonard and Aldridge’s ability to make them consistently have become a huge part of San Antonio’s sustained brilliance. Leonard finished with 27and Aldridge with 23, 15 in the second half.

“(Leonard) and LaMarcus were really offensive juggernauts for us,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “They did a great job.”

“I think they just do a much better job moving the ball and staying with their game than we do,” Van Gundy said.

Nobody in the Pistons traveling party knows it better than Aron Baynes, who spent his NBA career with the Spurs before signing with the Pistons in free agency last July. Any opening the opponent provides, the Spurs pounce.

“I think any good team you play against, no matter who you are, if you come out here and make mistakes, then they’re going to capitalize on it,” said Baynes, who gave the Pistons 12 points and six boards in 26 minutes. “That’s what they were able to do tonight. They made the right plays. Nothing fancy, but just smart, solid basketball plays.”

“They just play the right way. They play so well together,” Jackson said. “They’ve been doing it together for a while. They know where each other’s going to be. The system, they work it magnificently. They’re a team that generally is going to make you pay. That was evident tonight and we’ve got to learn from it and just try to get better.”