The Pistons re-signed Javonte Green on a one-year, $3.95MM contract this summer, a transaction that flew under the radar.

While Green doesn’t get a whole lot of attention, he appeared in all 82 games last season on a 60-win team. And the veteran wing made everyone take notice of him on Tuesday, as he sparked a second-half rally in Detroit’s 121-113 season-opening win over Boston.

Green scored 19 points in 18 minutes as the Pistons erased a 22-point deficit. He was on the floor when they scored 23 unanswered points in the fourth quarter and then clinched the victory with two late free throws.

“Going out there and leading by example is always something I’ve been taught,” he said. “I mean, it’s very comforting to have that trust in your teammates and for them to have that trust in you, too.”

Here’s more on the Pistons:

• Jalen Duren, who ended his contentious restricted free agency during training camp by signing a $200MM contract, had 22 points in the opener. He wasn’t the least bit surprised that the Pistons came back to win after falling behind by 22 points — the largest comeback on the first day of an NBA season in the play-by-play era (since 1997-98). “We’re not the team to hang our heads. We’ve seen the bottom,” he said. “A lot of guys are new here, but we’ve seen the bottom, so we’re not afraid of it. And you know, we fight. That’s the identity of our team. We’ve built everything we have so far off of being gritty, being dogs, and kind of just attacking everybody that comes in front of us. So, I would never say we were scared or worried or anything.”
• Ausar Thompson, who also signed a lucrative extension during the offseason, supplied 11 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. Coach J.B. Bickerstaff is looking for Thompson to be a bigger offensive threat. “We know he’s going to guard the other guy’s best player and do what he does there, but how disruptive can he be on that (offensive) end of the floor? We just want him to be assertive for as many minutes as he’s on the floor,” Bickerstaff said. “We want everybody to feel his impact, so we just got to keep pushing him, and I know he wants it, so that’s the easy part for us.”
• A handful of reserves played at least 15 minutes but Ron Holland wasn’t one of them. Holland, whose 2027/28 contract was guaranteed by the team prior to the game, only saw three minutes of action as Bickerstaff rode Green’s hot hand. The team’s depth is a good dilemma for the coach. “We’ll figure out who the best version of this group is,” Bickerstaff said. “Still looking to put combinations together, get guys on the floor, evaluate who plays best when. Is it a second-quarter group? Is it a fourth-quarter group? Just having new guys that we have to kind of work into what we’re doing, still get a good feel for that.”