Miami trounces Detroit, Pistons (somehow, at 10-11) still hold fourth-best record in Eastern Conference
By Tim Thielke
| Greg Monroe, PF 29 MIN | 3-10 FG | 4-5 FT | 7 REB | 1 AST | 2 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 10 PTS | -15Monroe played hard but was largely neutralized offensively by the Heat. He has to throw his weight around more against smaller guys. His strip as LeBron went hard to the rim was a thing of beauty though. | ||
| Josh Smith, SF 31 MIN | 6-14 FG | 0-0 FT | 4 REB | 2 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 3 TO | 13 PTS | -16Smith wasn’t taking bad shots. He wasn’t hitting enough of his good ones, but this would represent progress if he somehow maintains it. His defense left a lot to be desired, but Smith isn’t a perimeter defender. That’s an adjustment Cheeks has to make. Drummond is good at corralling smaller guys, Smith isn’t. Switch who’s guarding whom. | ||
| Andre Drummond, C 36 MIN | 8-11 FG | 3-6 FT | 14 REB | 0 AST | 2 STL | 2 BLK | 1 TO | 19 PTS | -12I saw Drummond grabbing boards all over the place and playing fantastic help defense. I had no idea, until I looked at the box score, that he had 19 points. Drummond is a beast! | ||
| Brandon Jennings, PG 34 MIN | 6-14 FG | 6-7 FT | 4 REB | 6 AST | 2 STL | 0 BLK | 6 TO | 19 PTS | -13Jennings hit 43% of his shots, so that’s better than normal. The 1:1 AST:TO ratio hurts though. Like most of the team, he looked good early and terrible late. | ||
| Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, SG 18 MIN | 0-4 FG | 0-0 FT | 0 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 0 PTS | -14Caldwell-Pope had a miserable game. He contributed nothing on offense and while his defense didn’t look awful (it didn’t look good either), he got burned by every wing he tried to cover. | ||
| Tony Mitchell, PF 4 MIN | 0-1 FG | 0-0 FT | 0 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 0 PTS | +3Mitchell’s garbage time did not yield anything worth evaluating. | ||
| Josh Harrellson, PF 11 MIN | 0-3 FG | 0-0 FT | 4 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 0 PTS | -3Harrellson’s battled, but he didn’t exhibit much talent tonight. Cheeks was getting better play out of Jerebko and Villanueva so he had no reason to leave Josh in. | ||
| Jonas Jerebko, PF 21 MIN | 5-9 FG | 0-0 FT | 3 REB | 1 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 12 PTS | +1Jerebko played very well and his threes were a huge reason the Pistons stuck around in the first half. | ||
| Charlie Villanueva, PF 14 MIN | 4-8 FG | 0-0 FT | 2 REB | 2 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 10 PTS | -6Villanueva made the most of his time on the floor offensively. But he may as well have been a pylon on defense. So we pretty much got “good Villanueva” in this game. | ||
| Luigi Datome, SF 8 MIN | 0-4 FG | 0-0 FT | 2 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 0 PTS | +3Datome is a Piston for one reason: to hit shots. He didn’t do that. | ||
| Kyle Singler, SF 20 MIN | 3-4 FG | 3-4 FT | 2 REB | 1 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 1 TO | 10 PTS | -1Singler is reasonably good at sticking with his man and rotating properly. But he’s also a bit slow, so when the other team moves the ball really well, he’s doomed. I don’t know how much better he was capable of guarding all of Miami’s shooters, but he wasn’t good enough in this one.On the other hand, Singler shot well. | ||
| Peyton Siva, PG 14 MIN | 1-4 FG | 0-0 FT | 2 REB | 3 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 2 PTS | -2Siva looked like a competent end-of-the-bench player! It’s a miracle. | ||
| Maurice Cheeks I don’t know if Cheeks did anything differently in this game than the one in Miami, but the Pistons looked their worst out of the gate and immediately after the halftime break. At one point, he was playing either Jerebko or Villanueva at SG. Sorry, Mo, you only get points for creativity if it works (or at least if I think it should have a shot at working). |
Two Things We Saw
- The Pistons have been pretty up and down in the 3rd quarter this season. This game was a big down. Miami tore the game open by starting the quarter 15-4 and the Pistons never got close enough again to make it seem like they had a shot.
- Miami’s shooting was unstoppable. At one point, their bench had 31 point on 12 shots. In general, when the other team shoots 56% to your 42%, you’re probably not going to win that game.