Just why exactly are the Detroit Pistons 3-0?

One of the biggest surprises of the early NBA season so far has been the hot start of the Detroit Pistons. Nobody would have expected the Pistons to start off 3-0 after having to deal with the Atlanta Hawks on the road, and the Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz at home. I thought they would either be 1-2 or 0-3, with the only win I thought possible being against the Jazz.

It’s worth noting that teams don’t typically start seasons 3-0 without a good reason. The Pistons are shooting under 40% from the floor so far while allowing their opponents to shoot around 44%, which is a touch above the mark of 42.4% the Pistons allowed last year from the floor. They’ve also had 21 steals and 17 against them while only getting 16 steals and nine blocks themselves. So just why, exactly, are your Detroit Pistons 3-0?

First off, in spite of the fact that the Pistons overall shooting defense numbers aren’t stellar, that number is a bit misleading. The Pistons are holding their opposition to just 27.9% from behind the three-point line, which is good for seventh in the NBA, and they are absolutely crushing the teams they’ve played on the glass. As a team, the Pistons are outrebounding their collective opposition 54.3 to 42.7 rebounds per game, and a ridiculous 17 of those boards are on the offensive end. That number is tops in the NBA, as is the 6.3 offensive rebounds per game that they are yielding.

There is a downside to selling out as a team on the offensive glass, in that you get back slower on defense and can give up transition points easier. It’s why a lot of good teams (particularly the ones that emphasize small lineups) often bail out on offensive rebounds, and if the ball doesn’t fall in their laps they eschew that side of the court and just get back on defense.

The Pistons have a built-in advantage that lets them pull in the offensive boards, though, in the form of the Eastern Conference Player of the Week Andre Drummond. When you have a guy who is essentially a rebound magnet right now, as a team you don’t have to sell out as hard for offensive rebounds, and you can be responsible on defense and get back while your one-man army cleans the glass.

Drummond alone averages 6.3 offensive rebounds per game thus far, the exact same number that the teams the Pistons have faced have averaged as a whole.

Aside from the rebounding edge the Pistons have enjoyed, the Pistons have had a dominant starting unit.

Pistons fans are familiar with great starting fives, as some of you who have been around for a while may recall the great teams led by Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Rasheed and Ben Wallace.

I’m not trying to suggest that this team’s starting five bears any resemblance to that lineup, but there’s no doubt it’s been about that long since the Pistons have had anything close to a cohesive starting lineup that actually had the advantage on other starting units.

The Pistons starting five of Reggie Jackson, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Marcus Morris, Ersan Ilyasova and Andre Drummond are putting up some surreal numbers as a unit. According to NBA Wowy, this five man unit is averaging 1.108 points per possession, while yielding 0.817 points per possession defensively.

When extrapolated over 100 possessions to determine offensive, defensive and net ratings, the Pistons starters when playing as a five man unit are outscoring their opponents 110.8 to 81.7 per 100 possessions. That produces a net rating of +29.1 points per 100, and that’s over a sample of 62 minutes on the floor together, and 120 total possessions.

That’s pretty good, guys.

A cause for concern, though, is the shooting when the starters are on the floor. As a unit, the Pistons are shooting just 41.5%, with an effective field goal percentage of 47.5% and a true shooting percentage of 50.6%. It’s going to be vital for the Pistons to improve their efficiency, because good teams are going to make them pay for wasted possessions as the season goes on.

Conversely, the bench has been a problem. Also according to NBA Wowy, lineups including the three top bench players in terms of minutes played (Steve Blake, Anthony Tolliver and Stanley Johnson) are getting outscored 111 to 88.9 per 100 possessions. Lineups including Johnson, Blake and Aron Baynes are getting outscored 105.3 to 80.7 for a pretty bad net rating of -24.6, and that’s a 57 possession sample.

While both the starters and the bench lineups net ratings are likely to normalize, it’s definitely an analytical look at something that the eye test tells us, and that is that the bench has been the worst thing about this team so far this season.

The guy who holds the most hope off the bench is Stanley Johnson.

Johnson has shown flashes of being a damn fine NBA player, although like the rest of the team he is going to have to improve his efficiency on offense. Shooting just 32.1% from the floor and 28.6% from three isn’t going to cut it, but those numbers are going to improve as his experience and comfort levels rise.

He’s been a contributor aside from the offense as well, though. Johnson is averaging 16.1 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.6 assists per 36 minutes, and he hasn’t been shy about getting his shot up either, with 18 shot attempts per 36. That’s going to pay dividends when his shot starts to fall.

One of the more pleasant surprises for the Pistons in a season full of them so far has been Marcus Morris. He leads the team in scoring and is just a touch behind Andre Drummond in usage at 24.4%, and he’s been one of the best shooters on the team, hitting 47% of his shots from the field and 57% from three, albeit a small sample of seven shots.

He’s averaging 19.3 points and 7.7 rebounds to go with 2.2 assists per game, and there is no way the Pistons are 3-0 at this point without his efforts.

Now that these three games are in the books, the rubber is about to really meet the road for the Pistons. This season-opening stretch can still be a real killer, even with these first three games in the win column. They face the winless and desperate Indiana Pacers on Tuesday, and then they go west.

More from Pistons News

Historically the Pistons fare poorly on the road vs Western Conference teams (that might be because West teams tend to be awesome), and they have a ten-day stretch where they play six games out west starting on Friday night in Phoenix.

They’ll face the Phoenix Suns, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Golden State Warriors, the Sacramento Kings, and the Los Angeles Clippers and the Lakers.

The Pistons may very well be a .500 team by the end of this road trip, and if they don’t shore up some of the weaknesses we’ve discussed, they may be lucky to be any better than that.

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