AUBURN HILLS -- Stan Van Gundy came to Reggie Jackson's defense Friday in the cell-phone-recorded fan exchange that cost the Detroit Pistons point guard a $25,000 fine this week, and said the team intends to add extra road security in light of recent video-recorded altercations which led to Philadelphia 76ers rookie Jahlil Okafor's two-game suspension.

Jackson cursed back at a taunting fan during a Nov. 27 game at Oklahoma City.

His video retort subsequently was published on Deadspin.

"I know who the bad guys are in that episode," Van Gundy said. "You've got to be a person with very little life to try and catch somebody with your cell phone out. That's a punk move but that's the way it is."

The Pistons' head coach and president of basketball operations said he understood why the National Basketball Association had to fine Jackson but added that there are times even he wants to fire back at taunting fans, "and I'm 30 years older than these guys."

"If you've got somebody 10 feet away from you, yelling vulgarities at you and everything else -- and we're a lot older than they are -- we're just going to walk away and not say anything back?" Van Gundy said. "So Reggie got a $25,000 fine. That's fine. I understand why the league has to do that; I'm not criticizing the league. But the people who would say that Reggie's the bad guy in that incident, and the whole thing -- really? Any of us, you've got people yelling at you from 10 feet away, you're not going to say anything back to that? You're that good? No, I don't think so.

"So the league actually holds our guys to a much higher standard -- and for good reason, again, I'm not criticizing the league, for good reason -- but those guys are held to a much higher standard than any of us would be held to in those kinds of situations."

Van Gundy said the Pistons always have security personnel available to players on the road but are "in the process, because of certain things going on and everything, that we'll add security on the road, so we'll have more available, which will help them going out."

That move comes as Okafor serves a two-game suspension after TMZ released videos of him in what appeared to be two separate altercations during a night out in Boston.

That contributed to the decision to boost road security, Van Gundy said.

"The bottom line is we can do a lot of things as a team," he said, "but it's still going to come down to individual guys' decisions."

Van Gundy said the team does not force players to take security personnel with them on nights out -- "I'm not sure we could," he added -- but that he prefers they do.

"Then, if you've got a situation like Jahlil had, where you've got some guy coming at you, you've got somebody to step in the middle," Van Gundy said. "I know everybody's on him hard, but a lot of those guys don't let you walk away. So if you're there on your own, you're faced with a very difficult situation, and there's no question that guys are, to some people, targets when they go out."

PISTONS NOTES

Drummond's spine-tingling FTs ill-gotten?: The last-two-minute officiating review of the Pistons' 127-122 overtime win Wednesday over Phoenix found that Reggie Jackson should have been called for a dead-ball moving screen with 19.1 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, on the same possession that Andre Drummond hit two overtime-forcing free throws. The Pistons trailed 112-110 when Jackson screened for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on an in-bounds play. League review ruled an incorrect no-call, with the notation that Jackson did not give Suns guard Brandon Knight "room to avoid the contact as he continues moving into him." Caldwell-Pope received the in-bounds pass from Marcus Morris in the corner and passed out top to Jackson. Drummond was fouled by P.J. Tucker as he went to set a screen with 14.3 seconds left, leading to his tying free throws.

Limiting miscues: Through the first 14 games of the season, the Pistons averaged 15.0 turnovers per game. They have averaged 11.5 over the last six games, including 10 against the Bucks.

Crowd sizes increasing: The game drew 16,963 to The Palace of Auburn Hills, the third-largest crowd in nine home dates this season, exceeded by the home opener against Utah (18,434) and a Nov. 17 game against Cleveland (18,442). The Pistons are 25th in the league with an average crowd of 15,890. They have not drawn average crowds that large for an entire season since 2010-11.

That's a first: The Pistons were outrebounded 51-46. It marked the first time this season the Pistons have defeated an opponent which had at least as many rebounds as they did (1-7).

Five of the eight: Andre Drummond's 17-point, 23-rebound game was his fifth 20-rebound game this season. The only other NBA players with 20-rebound games this season are Houston's Dwight Howard, Dallas' Zaza Pachulia, and the Los Angeles Clippers' DeAndre Jordan with one apiece.

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