Griffin scores 24 in Detroit’s 104-102 win over Memphis

DETROIT — Blake Griffin was Detroit’s best player in his debut with the Pistons.

Griffin had 24 points and 10 rebounds, and although his new team is still very much a work in progress, the Pistons edged the Memphis Grizzlies 104-102 on Thursday night.

Detroit traded for Griffin earlier in the week. The Pistons haven’t had much time to work with him, but they were clearly a better team when he played against the Grizzlies.

“We were plus-23 with him on the floor in 35 minutes, so we were fairly dominant in that time,” coach Stan Van Gundy said. “I don’t know why we haven’t gotten to all this in the hour and 15 minutes we’ve had together, but we’ve really got to get our spacing down and understand where we want people to be.”

Griffin’s teammates looked uncertain at times, but Detroit was able to outlast a Memphis team that is without Tyreke Evans and Mike Conley.

“I wanted to just come out and play hard, being very limited in my knowledge of our offense,” Griffin said. “I thought coach 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.”

Anthony Tolliver’s 3pointer with 1:49 remaining gave Detroit a 101-100 lead, and the score stayed that way until the final seconds. Marc Gasol attempted to drive on Griffin but missed his shot, and a wild scramble led to a jump ball between Tolliver and Dillon Brooks with 10.4 seconds left. AP