Reggie Jackson’s photo-bomb saved himself and Pistons

Reggie Jackson‘s photo-bomb saved himself and the Detroit Pistons. Well, not literally, but since the photo-bomb Jackson has seen a huge resurgence in his play.

Reggie Jackson was all over social media.

After an unconvincing win, Blake Griffin was talking with Johnny Kane for a post-game interview. Griffin was venting his displeasure with how the team closes games, and was citing lack of focus as an issue.

Then Jackson came in.

Jumped in front of the camera, posing and having fun after a win.

It was clearly an awkward moment, as Jackson turned around at Griffin to congratulate and Griffin was clearly not feeling it.

“See, Reggie is all about himself!”

“Clearly what Blake is talking about, their starting point guard plays around too much.”

“Bad teammate Reggie, what’d you expect?”

An honest poor timing accident was flipped into meat for the Reggie-Jackson-sucks tribe to feast on.

The criticism over that incident, unlike the criticism over his play beforehand, was not fair at all.

But, this whole incident is what has launched Jackson back into the player we once knew!

OK. Maybe it wasn’t the photo-bomb itself that has done the trick, but I’m going to have fun with it.

Jackson missed the whole off-season. He didn’t get to play during the pre-season. He was too busy trying to get back to full strength after an ankle injury ruined his and the Pistons season last year.

The first half of the season the burst wasn’t there for Jackson. He seemed slower, and while he showed some 2016 Jackson in spurts, it didn’t last very long at all.

Walking-on-water strength and conditioning coach Arnie Kander, who took a medical consultant role in the off-season, worked with Jackson throughout the off-season to get him healthy. Kander warned the Detroit Pistons and its fans that it would very likely take till at LEAST January for Jackson to be all the way back to himself.

What’s today’s date again? Oh, February 12th.

And when did the photo-bomb take place? Oh, January 23rd.

Coincidence? I THINK NOT! (You tell em, Bernie.)

In the eight games since the photo-bomb, Jackson has been nothing short of amazing. His stats, which I’ll provide below, don’t even tell the full story. He has looked spry, jumpy, much like the Mr.Clutch guy we used to know.

(Good thing I’ll provide clips to exhibit this)

In these eight games, Jackson has averaged 19.0 points, 6.6 assists to only 1.6 turnovers (yesterdays late game buffoonery made his assist-turnover ratio worse *angry face*) a game, on 49 percent shooting from the field and 47 percent from three on 6.4 attempts(which is good for a 63 percent true shooting percentage). The team has been a +10.5 with Jackson on the court during this stretch.

Oh, and the best stat of them all; the Detroit Pistons are 5-3 over this stretch and are currently riding a four-game winning streak. This has pushed the Pistons into sole control of the eighth seed and only 1.5 games behind the sixth seeded Brooklyn Nets.

If Kander was right about Jackson and this is the result of Jackson’s body catching up (I like the photo-bomb reason better), he should be capable of providing the kind of contribution we were so normal to seeing.

One last thing to add to this. I have been a big critic of Dwane Casey. I still don’t believe he is the best coach for the Pistons, and I still think he has issues.

However, I wouldn’t be doing my job honestly if I didn’t give Casey some credit for Jackson’s recent stretch. For the entire season, I have been screaming for pick and rolls to be a part of this offense. It was what this team was BUILT on, and Casey had all but deleted it from the offense,

I don’t know why it took Casey this long, but over the last few weeks he has definitely made a change in his offense. Casey has realized that Andre Drummond rolling to the rim is great, and Drummond post-ups are not great.

Casey has also realized that getting Jackson pick and rolls doesn’t just help him, it makes Drummond a force and creates so much more in the offense.

Oh, and it takes off some of the massive load Griffin has been carrying all season.

Casey, I’ve been highly critical of you and I could take the route of, “It took this guy damn near till the All Star break to realize pick and rolls could help” but I wont do that for a couple reasons.

One, Jackson wasn’t as healthy as he was now and it MAY not have been as successful as now. Two, even if I think the first reason is a load of you know what, at least he came to his senses before it was too late.

The change in both Jackson’s play and the offense has re-energized this team, and more specifically their Big3.

On the season when Jackson-Griffin-Drummond are on the floor, the Detroit Pistons have a net rating of +5.6. Yeah, this trio has been successful all season; shocking as it may be.

Over these last eight games, that number has skyrocketed to +22.3.

Jackson’s play has a huge thing to do with this.

Who knew a simple photo-bomb could cause all this.