Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to miss time for the Pistons with injury

The Detroit Pistons are going to be without Kentavious Caldwell-Pope for at least the next game after he suffered a groin injury against the Boston Celtics.

The Detroit Pistons were dealt a blow on Wednesday night in a road matchup against the Boston Celtics. The Pistons fell 102-95, but perhaps more importantly than the final result, the Pistons lost a pivotal member of their five-man starting unit.

Shooting guard and defensive stalwart Kentavious Caldwell-Pope hit a wet spot on the TD Garden floor in Boston late in the second quarter while guarding Jae Crowder, then slipped and hit the ground.

It was a scary moment, with KCP and Crowder both hitting the ground. Crowder got back up under his own power, but Caldwell-Pope needed to be helped off and was taken to the locker room.

According to Rod Beard of the Detroit News, head coach Stan Van Gundy stated that KCP will undergo an MRI on Thursday, after which point the team will have a better idea of what his situation will be.

"“He’s got a groin strain; we’ll get an MRI (Thursday) and we’ll be able to tell you (Thursday) better,” coach Stan Van Gundy said following the game. “He’ll almost certainly be out (Thursday), but other than that, we don’t know until we find out."

KCP has the second-longest streak of consecutive games played in the NBA currently with 207, and that will almost certainly end Thursday when the Pistons play the New York Knicks at home.

The Pistons hope that the damage is minor and that he can return to the lineup quickly, but if there’s ever a time to miss games with an injury, it’s the pre-All Star break period. The Pistons have another four games until the All Star break which begins on February 12th and continues through the 17th. They don’t play between the 11th and 19th, giving KCP some added time to heal up if he is slow to return.

Caldwell-Pope’s absence will open the door for Stanley Johnson to jump into the starting lineup. Johnson’s recent play has taken a big turn for the better, and this may be a further springboard for him.

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The Pistons’ offense has been very effective when featuring Johnson and Marcus Morris on the floor together, with Johnson playing the three and Morris playing the four, as the Pistons are scoring 110.6 points per 100 possessions. This is over a significant sample size of 484 minutes and 952 possessions.

Mind you, the defense has been poor, as they’ve given up 105.9 points per 100 possessions with the two together on the floor, a number 4.3 points worse than the Pistons are yielding on the whole this season.

This situation will be a bit different, as Johnson will likely be slotted into the two, or shooting guard, and Morris will remain in his usual small forward spot, with Ersan Ilyasova at the power forward. These positions will likely flex some over the course of the game (or games), but this will be the default configuration the Pistons will start games with until Caldwell-Pope returns.

With Jodie Meeks still laid up with a Jones fracture until most likely March, Darrun Hilliard will be slotted into the reserve spot behind Johnson.

Hilliard hasn’t gotten much burn this season, averaging just six minutes per game in 17 appearances, but much like Johnson is about to get a chance to shine, perhaps Hilliard will take advantage of this unfortunate situation.

Next: Andre Drummond named All-Star reserve

All stats courtesy of NBAWowy.com and stats.NBA.com.