Pistons Hope to Blaze a Trail
By J.M. Poulard
Essentials
- Teams: Portland Trail Blazers (16-4) at Detroit Pistons (3-18)
- Date: December 9
- Time: 7:30 p.m.
- Television: FSD
Get in the Game
The Detroit Pistons are hoping to break two streaks tonight when they host a hot Portland Trail Blazers team. The Pistons have dropped 12 straight games, and head coach Stan Van Gundy would certainly love to put an end to this run.
However, tonight’s opponent is hardly ideal for a Pistons team looking for a pick me up.
Aided by a four-game win streak coming into the contest against Detroit, Portland owns the third best record in a brutally tough Western Conference. Yes, the Blazers are that good.
The tandem of Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge gives opponents fits on offense, and it’s helping Portland score at a top-seven rate so far this season.
Lillard is a creative ball-handler and terrifying finisher, which typically prompts defenders to back off him just a bit for fear of getting exposed. However, Lillard is also a 39.7 percent three-point shooter, a fact that only makes matters worse for defenders.
There isn’t much way to contain Portland’s floor general, especially when he’s running pick-and-rolls and pick-and-pops with Aldridge. The Blazers’ power forward is one of the top players at his position because of his scoring proficiency inside the three-point line.
Indeed, Aldridge must be guarded on just about every spot on the floor because of his jump-shooting ability. He does it from the low block, mid-range, baseline and top of the key. What’s more, Aldridge has no issues with pump faking and putting the ball on the floor to get to the basket.
He was already one of the best shooting big men in the league coming into the year, and Aldridge took it a step further this season by adding three-point range to his game. Yikes! Granted, the 6’11 forward is only attempting 1.1 treys per game, but the 50 percent conversion clip is enough to keep teams honest.
It stands to reason that Portland coach Terry Stotts will run his offense through Lillard and Aldridge, especially early in games. There’s no surprise there, but the Blazers catch teams off guard when they go away from their big guns.
Even when teams know it’s coming, it’s still confusing. For instance, Portland will run some misdirection plays to get the ball to its stars in scoring position, which is fairly standard for great offensive teams in the league.
However, the Blazers play games with defenses by running what looks like misdirection, but is actually just a straight up play for someone else. That’s how you end up with Wes Matthews running pick-and-rolls with Robin Lopez for easy scores where no one rotates to Lopez as he slowly scores at the hoop.
The same is true for the likes of Nic Batum and Chris Kaman. Stotts forces the defenses to rotate and then tricks them.
This is why at times, teams facing Portland look like they have awful defensive principles. They get so worried about what’s coming next that they either stay at home on some assignments or anticipate where the ball is supposed to go only to see it end up with Portland’s lesser players for high-percentage looks.
For a Detroit unit that ranks in the league’s bottom-half defenses, tonight’s contest will provide a fairly big challenge. Disciplined teams that pay attention to details get fooled by these Blazers, and the Pistons aren’t quite in that stratosphere.
This should make for a difficult task as far as the home team is concerned.
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