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There are a lot of perfectly good explanations for the Detroit Pistons' five-game winning streak—justifications ranging from their soft schedule to their improved perimeter shooting to Brandon Jennings' surprising resurgence—but none are as simple as this: Stan Van Gundy was right to waive Josh Smith.

Smoove-less, Detroit smashed the visiting Sacramento Kings by a final of 114-95 on Sunday, riding a whopping 35 points from Jennings to its fifth straight victory. Just for context, the Pistons won five times in the 28 games Smith played with them this year.

It's difficult to explain Jennings' recent streak. A player whose career has been marked by woeful inaccuracy (see 39 percent shooting in five-plus seasons) has become a marksman sans Smith. Over his past five contests, Jennings has averaged 21.6 points per game on 55.8 percent shooting, including a scorching 48.6 percent from long distance. The Pistons' official Twitter account noted this comment from Van Gundy:

There's no way Van Gundy could have foreseen this when he cut Smith loose Dec. 22. Nobody expected Detroit (or Jennings, specifically) to shape up so suddenly.

This is where the skeptics can chime in with the usual small-sample-size caveats. Where they note that Detroit has run up its streak against weak and/or vulnerable competition. The Kings are just the latest lame victim, a team reeling in the wake of its own personnel shakeup, the rash firing of head coach Mike Malone.

Before Sacramento, the Pistons knocked off the Indiana Pacers, Cleveland Cavaliers, Orlando Magic and New York Knicks—all struggling with injury, ineffectiveness, malaise or, in the Knicks' case, all of the above. We'd be foolish to judge Van Gundy's decision a perfect success based on those games.

But we'd be nearly as foolish to ignore the obvious truth: Something has changed since Smith's departure. Pistons.com editor Keith Langlois offers these stats:

The ball's moving. Defenders are more attentive. The spacing is better. Shots are actually going in (thanks, Jodie Meeks). Throw all that together, and you've got what looks very much like a prototypical Van Gundy-coached team: smart offense, disciplined defense and clearly defined roles.

Those broader trends could last, even if Jennings' shooting streak doesn't.

It's fair to question what took Van Gundy so long to see this was an addition-by-subtraction scenario waiting to happen. It's reasonable to chide him for passing up a chance to trade Smith before the season, which would have saved the millions lost by waiving him. Big picture, it's worth asking whether his hesitation was more evidence that the dual roles of coach and head executive create cross purposes.

Then again, maybe Van Gundy deserves credit for letting Smith try to prove himself, for judging the player on his own experience with him, rather than by reputation—even if that reputation must have been hard to ignore.



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At any rate, Van Gundy got it right eventually, and he did so with enough time left for the Pistons to make something of this season.

A decent conference would have lapped most 10-23 teams by now, but this year's East is far from decent. It's awful, and the Pistons are just four games out of a playoff spot. This is far from over.

Rest assured, we'll get a real chance to see what Detroit's made of in the coming days. In order, it'll face the San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and Atlanta Hawks this week. After that, the Brooklyn Nets and Toronto Raptors loom, both sitting comfortably above the Pistons in the standings. Per the Pistons' Twitter account:

An emergence from that stretch with three or four wins will say much more about Detroit's respectability (and Van Gundy's bold move) than the five wins it has lately amassed.

For now, though, Detroit and Van Gundy are winning. And all they had to do was lose Smith.

Around the Association

The Kings Miss Mike Malone

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We all knew it when it happened: Firing Mike Malone was a mistake. Not because Malone was a genius, or because he was definitely the coach who'd propel the Kings to the next level. He wasn't either of those things.

He was, however, the guy who presided over a 9-5 start and who, more importantly, connected with the previously impossible-to-reach DeMarcus Cousins.

So, we shouldn't have been surprised that in the aftermath of the Kings' loss to Detroit, which dropped them to 3-7 in the post-Malone era, Cousins got real, per Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee:

It's a rare thing when there's near unanimous derision for a coaching move, and it's probably rarer when it turns out all that derision was justified.

This is going to get worse before it gets better.

The Raptors Look Different

And not just because Archie Goodwin's garbage-time dunk on Jonas Valanciunas made the big man appear to be about 5'6".

After getting stomped out by the Golden State Warriors on Friday, the Toronto Raptors fell hard again, this time 125-109 to the Phoenix Suns. Led by Eric Bledsoe's 20 points, the Suns saw seven players reach double figures, as they shot a scary 53.9 percent from the floor overall.

An early-season darling and still a formidable squad, the Raps aren't primed for a major slide. They are, however, having their defensive weaknesses exposed. They've quietly been a bottom-10 defense over the past 10 games, per NBA.com.

Good news is on the horizon, though:

I'm not sure how many positions DeMar DeRozan can guard, but if the answer is "one," he'll probably help.

There Is No Bottom

It would be more fun if the takeaway from the Milwaukee Bucks' 95-82 win over the New York Knicks—an achievement that vaulted one of the league's most exciting young teams to 18-17 on the year—could focus on the victors.

But it can't.

Because the losers in this contest have been so thorough, so remarkably completist in their recent failings that they have to be the conversation piece.

New York has lost 11 straight for the first time since the 1984-85 season, and its current 10-game home winless streak is a franchise worst.

This is bad, people. Real bad. The Wall Street Journal's Chris Herring quotes Knicks head coach Derek Fisher:

The Knicks were without Amar'e Stoudemire (knee), Carmelo Anthony (knee) and, of course, Andrea Bargnani (calf), which explains some of the problem. Only some, though. There are and should be questions about Fisher, about the franchise's decision to max out Melo and about the viability of the triangle.

It seems the Knicks have failure—both of the broad, conceptual and day-to-day bungling variety—down pat.

The draft lottery can't come soon enough.

The Cavs Are Who They Thought They Were

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If you step back and think about it, the Cleveland Cavaliers are only a disappointment relative to our own expectations. They had a pretty good handle on themselves from the start.

Keep that in mind while digesting their 109-90 loss to the Dallas Mavericks—a result notched without LeBron James, sidelined by a balky back and creaky knee—and their broader habit of underwhelming critics.

From the beginning, they were honest about viewing this season as a step in a larger growth process. James said so when he decided to go home, then reiterated his stance in November. And general manager David Griffin vehemently asserted as much in a screed against the reports of uncertainty around head coach David Blatt's job.

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"I'm not surprised, but I've been disappointed the slant has been an attempt to be so negative all the time," Griffin told reporters, via ESPN. "This is exactly what we said it's going to be: It's a work in progress and we're going to continue to get better every day."

One guy who got better on Sunday: Kevin Love. Maligned for his lack of production alongside James, Love put up 30 points and 10 rebounds in defeat. The real trick will be sustaining that kind of effort with LBJ back in the lineup.

And, because nothing in Cleveland comes easy, Kyrie Irving went down after just 25 minutes with a back injury. He'll be out against the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday, per ESPN's Dave McMenamin.

One step at a time, though, right?

Miami Got the One It Needed

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The Miami Heat avoided a five-game slide, righted the ship after getting crushed by the Houston Rockets Saturday and ran their season record against the Brooklyn Nets to 3-0 with their narrow 88-84 win on Sunday.

But the most important aspect of the Heat's victory was its timing: coming just before a five-game road trip out West. Miami will see Portland, both L.A. teams, Golden State and Sacramento before returning home Jan. 20 to face the Oklahoma City Thunder.

At 15-20, clinging to the No. 8 seed in the East, Miami simply couldn't afford to drop a getaway game at home. Thanks to two familiar friends and one unlikely but increasingly intriguing newcomer, it got the job done.

Recipe for the road trip: More Hassan Whiteside, who has averaged 8.2 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.4 blocks in 20.2 minutes per game over the last five contests.

Kobe Finishes Things

Kobe Bryant scored the Los Angeles Lakers' final nine points against the Indiana Pacers, including a righty hook that put them up for good, 88-87, with 12 seconds left in the game. It was a clinic in switch-flipping, as Kobe deferred for the first three quarters, scoring just 11 points. ESPN's Ramona's Shelburne quotes Kobe on the effects of the switching:

On the night, he finished 7-of-14 from the floor with six rebounds and six assists. The full picture included him falling asleep on defense to allow open shots for Solomon Hill and Donald Sloan on two late-game possessions. All in all, though, Bryant got the job done.

Indiana, on the other hand, burned nearly 10 seconds doing nothing on its final possession, settling for a contested Roy Hibbert 20-footer that came nowhere close.

It's safe to say that Bryant knew how to finish, while the Pacers had absolutely no idea.

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