Bynum had 20 points and eight assists off the bench, with 12 points and five assists coming in the fourth quarter, when the Pistons shot 56.3 percent from the field. Wittman responded to the small lineup by going smaller, replacing Singleton with Martell Webster rather than Okafor down the stretch.
“Looking back on it, it was a situation that they went small,” Wittman said, when asked if he contemplated inserting Okafor in the fourth quarter. “Probably have to pull Nene and put him in. I thought about it, yeah. . . . This is a game, going into the fourth quarter ahead; these are the games we’ve been pulling out. It’s a little disappointing. To give up 31 in the fourth, tough to pull out a win.”
Nene, Ariza and Beal had 10 points apiece, but Beal didn’t score in the second half, missing all six of his field goal attempts, including an airball from three-point range.
“Second half, I wasn’t aggressive enough,” Beal said. “We made dumb mistakes on both ends of the floor. Times, we were out of rotation, got confused a couple of times, went brain dead, so to speak. And on offense, we couldn’t make a shot. It was just one of those games, I guess.”
Beal came off the bench behind Garrett Temple for the third consecutive game since returning from a sprained right wrist, with Wittman looking to not disrupt a rotation that has been working in recent weeks. A change might be in order when the team returns to action on Tuesday against Toronto.
“It’s the little things that beat us,” Webster said. “I’m disappointed. I wanted to get the win. We didn’t get it. It’s over now. We have to go rejuvenate ourselves and recharge our batteries and come back flying.”
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