Heat at Pistons
The Blake Griffin era got off to a good start for the Detroit Pistons, who seek their third straight win and second in a row since acquiring the star power forward when they host the Miami Heat on Saturday. Griffin, traded from the Los Angeles Clippers earlier in the week, had 24 points, 10 rebounds and five assists to help the Pistons top Memphis 104-102 on Thursday.
"I wanted to just come out and play hard, being very limited in my knowledge of our offense," Griffin told reporters. "I thought coach (Stan) Van Gundy did a great job of just putting in five things that we could go to, and we ran them to death, but they worked and everybody just played hard." Detroit has consecutive victories for the fist time since a two-game run around Christmas and is aiming for its first three-game winning streak since the middle of December as it continues a six-game homestand. The Heat have gone six straight games scoring under 100 points and they are 2-4 in that stretch after Friday's 103-97 loss at Philadelphia. Hassan Whiteside scored four points in 18 minutes before leaving the game due to an illness as Miami received just 40 points from its starters.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, FS Sun (Miami), FS Detroit
ABOUT THE HEAT (29-23): While the starting five struggled at Philadelphia, four reserves put up impressive numbers to get Miami close after it fell behind by 28 points early in the fourth quarter. Kelly Olynyk, who is averaging 16.5 points on 70 percent shooting in two matchups with the Pistons, had a team-high 19 points and Wayne Ellington was right behind him with 16 points. Bam Adebayo hauled in 13 rebounds and Justise Winslow tied a season high with 12 as the Heat secured a 49-39 advantage on the glass.
ABOUT THE PISTONS (24-26): Detroit will expand on the limited playbook it showed in Griffin's debut and Van Gundy used Friday's practice to get that mission going. "We put in a bunch more today, four or five more," Van Gundy said Friday. "We'll just keeping adding a little bit day-by-day. Don't want to go (over) too much but there were some things we didn't have in to run for him (Thursday) that we wanted to add." All-Star center Andre Drummond didn't miss a beat with his new partner underneath, recording 14 points and 15 rebounds against Memphis for his fifth straight double-double.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Heat All-Star PG Goran Dragic is shooting 37.3 percent from the floor - including 2-for-13 from 3-point range - over a span of four games.
2. Pistons PG Dwight Buycks is averaging 12 points in 17 minutes over his last two games.
3. The teams have split two meetings this season with the home team winning both times.