The Portland Trail Blazers dropped in on the Detroit Pistons tonight looking for their first back-to-back wins since Halloween, but another victory was nowhere to be found. The leaders of the Eastern Conference sent the Blazers packing to the tune of 122-116, but it was a long way from easy.

Following are a few factors from the fray:

Apparently very few players in this game learned the first lesson of kindergarten: do not hit other kids. The Blazers were whistled for 35 fouls, and three players were banished as a result: Toumani Camara with 9:31 left, Cidy Cissoko at the 6:25 mark and Kris Murray just over a minute from the end. Meanwhile, the Pistons were charged with 29 fouls and could have garnered several more. The result of all this in free throws was 36 of 48 free throw shooting by the hosts and 32 of 35 by the visitors. As usual, Deni Advija led the parade for the Blazers with 14 of 15 from the line. Cade Cunningham countered for the Pistons with 13 of 14.

The good news is three Blazers scored like points were free of charge in this one–Deni with 35, Jerami Grant with 29 and Shaedon Sharpe with 28. The combination of scoring happened for the first time this season by any team in the league (courtesy of Blazers stats guru Tom Haberstroh). The bad news? Only those three Blazers scored in double figures, which turned out to be somewhat short of what was needed.

One of the players who didn’t quite reach double digits in points was Sidy Cissoko, the two-way player who has been starting games lately due to the injury absence of half of his teammates. He scored 8 points, but ended up with the best plus-minus on the team with a +12. There aren’t going to be many fans in Blazer-land who will be asking “Sidy Who” very much longer–the guy is impossible to ignore no matter what his numbers turn out to be.

No Donovan Clingan, No Early Luck in the Middle

Blazers big man Donovan Clingan was one of the players on the shelf for this game. He was missed. Pistons post man Jalen Duren took full advantage early, pouring in 16 points to lead his team to a 65-58 advantage at halftime. First-time starter Robert Williams III and reserve Duop Reath countered with 11 points between them, but Rob was in foul trouble almost immediately as Detroit manufactured an early 30-20 advantage on points in the paint. On the other hand, Williams was still around at the end of the game and seemed to be everywhere–blocking shots (he finished with 5) and jamming lobs (2) on the way to 8 points. He also grabbed rebounds (14 in all, 7 offensive).

This was a winnable game for the Blazers, so the obvious question is how good are the Pistons? Sure, they are 18-5 and looking down on the rest of the East, but they barely won tonight. Well, the obvious answer to this obvious question is yes, they are not a fluke and will be tough for the other Easterners to overcome. Cunningham and Duren are star-level talents and their team is Top-10 both offensively and defensively.

Which brings up another obvious question: how good are the Blazers, who gave these guys a verifiable fright in this one? This answer is not truly clear yet, but anyone who says “pretty danged dangerous” is unlikely to be contradicted by further evidence in the case.

Now that it is December, the Yuletide Season can’t be far away. The Pistons showed a prime example of the kind of gift the Blazers would like to see under the tree when the right day comes. Duncan Robinson played a mostly-quiet 34 minutes, scoring 14 points with 7 rebounds and 2 steals, but he was loud and clear at crunch time. He hit a three with 2:38 left in the game to tie the score at 110, hit another one at 1:40 to move the needle to 115-110, then added a pair of free throws at 1:01 to wrap up his day with the score 117-112. Any chance Santa can bring the Blazers one of those types of players?

The Blazers continue their trek across the middle of the country Sunday with a Memphis Grizzlies encounter. Game time is 3 pm, Pacific.