AUBURN HILLS -- Stan Van Gundy is used to having success in the NBA.
In his first season as both a coach and a team president, that's not happening.
"I've never been in this situation before," a frustrated Van Gundy said after Detroit's 104-98 loss to the Clippers Wednesday night. The Pistons are now 3-12 and have lost six straight.
Van Gundy has never coached a team to a losing record, but he has a lot of history to overcome in Detroit. The Pistons haven't had a winning season or won a playoff game since 2008, and Van Gundy is struggling to implement his system on a dysfunctional roster mostly built by Joe Dumars.
Detroit led for much of the game, but Chris Paul and Jamal Crawford torched them for 31 second-half points while the Pistons couldn't keep up on the other end.
"If you look at the box score and you see that Chris only has seven assists and 12 shots, you feel like you did a good job against him," Van Gundy said. "The problem is that he went 9-for-12, so he ends up with 23, and then Jamal comes in and gets 25. And, once again, we can't find shots in the fourth quarter. That's on me. I have to find a way for us to score at the end of games."
Van Gundy's probably being too hard on himself when it comes to Detroit's late-game offense. They scored 25 points in the fourth, but collapsed defensively. Los Angeles hit 64.7 percent of its shots, including 5-of-7 on 3-pointers.
"We've got to find a way to make shots and get stops down the stretch," said Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who struggled against Paul and Crawford in the second half. "Chris is a great player, but you have to find a way to stop him. It just takes a team effort."
Detroit's other problem was that their rebounding deserted them in the second half. One day after being pounded on the glass in a loss to Milwaukee, the Pistons were dominant on both ends of the floor in the first half against the Clippers.
After the intermission, though, it was a different story. The Clippers grabbed seven of their 16 missed shots -- they only had two offensive rebounds in the first half -- and kept the Pistons from getting to the offensive glass.
"I told our guys that winning in the NBA is hard, no matter what the other team's record is," said Clippers coach Doc Rivers. "Those guys are professionals, and they wanted to break that losing streak, and if we didn't embrace that this was going to be tough, we weren't going to win this game."
In the end, that might be the exact reason that Van Gundy is so frustrated. For the first time, he's coaching a team where playing hard might not be enough.
"I thought we played much harder tonight, and with much more energy," he said. "I just couldn't find a way to help our guys enough down the stretch."
