Greg Monroe, Bucks embarrass Pistons
By Tim Thielke
Final. 109. 89. 88. 64
The Pistons’ reserves finally played a decent game. They weren’t blowing anyone away, but they were respectable. The starters were awful, though. The game got so out of hand that Van Gundy emptied his bench for much of the fourth quarter.
PG. Pistons. REGGIE JACKSON. D+. Jackson was looking for Drummond early. Overall, he looked like a good point guard and was finding his teammates, but his shot wasn’t falling and that let the Bucks cheat off of him a bit. In the first quarter, Jackson was getting all the way to the rim and making things happen. But after that, he just couldn’t get all the way there and the whole offense ground to a halt.
B+. KCP pretty much carried the Pistons. When nobody else could buy a bucket, he just kept hitting. Unfortunately, there just weren’t enough KCP opportunities to really keep the Pistons alive.. SG. Pistons. KENTAVIOUS CALDWELL-POPE
D-. Morris exemplified the Pistons’ struggles, missing good shots, missing bad shots, committing turnovers on smart but risky plays, and committing dumb turnovers.. SF. Pistons. MARCUS MORRIS
F. Ilyasova hasn’t been particularly impressive all season, but he’s been nearly automatic on threes when he’d catch the ball with no defender anywhere near him, something that seemed to happen almost once a game. Tonight, even those wouldn’t fall. Pretty much the only things he did right were to help bat around an offensive rebound with Drummond that Andre eventually put down and to save a wild Jackson pass that would otherwise have gone out of bounds. Antetokounmpo took a rebound away from him that required tapping it around about a dozen times. Giannis probably would have won it anyway, but it would have been nie if Ersan jumped at least once in that “fight”.. PF. Pistons. ERSAN ILYASOVA
C-. Drummond had a nice stat line, largely compiled with some great offensive play in the first quarter. But Monroe abused him all game long. Also, the lobs Andre was getting from his teammates (especially from Jackson) were starting to get predictable enough that the Bucks could almost always break them up.. C. Pistons. ANDRE DRUMMOND
A-. Stanley was going hard after offensive rebounds and Milwaukee’s shooters. Unfortunately, Bayless in particular had a tendency to knock shots down right in spite of a hand right in his face. A lot of the stats he compiled were in the semi-garbage time of the fourth quarter, but it was still some pretty nice play on his part.. SF. Pistons. STANLEY JOHNSON
PG. Pistons. SPENCER DINWIDDIE. C-. As has become the norm, Dinwiddie looked semi-respectable with the ball in his hands, but his shooting was awful. It has come to the point that Dinwiddie is often passing up wide open looks that should be easy baskets if only he could shoot anything like the college version of himself.
B. Baynes played a hard-nosed game, wrestling away rebounds whenever he could. But even when he couldn’t, he was usually tapping them somewhere where a teammate at least had a chance at them.. C. Pistons. ARON BAYNES
C+. Hilliard wasn’t great, but he was better than Bullock has been. Maybe he can help shore up some of the Pistons’ depth issues.. SG. Pistons. DARRUN HILLIARD II
B. Tolliver heated up late in the fourth when the game had long since been decided. But the Bucks didn’t look like they had let up on defense at all, so it’s still a small positive. PF. Pistons. ANTHONY TOLLIVER
C. Steve Blake looked mediocre in his garbage time.. PG. Pistons. STEVE BLAKE
Pistons. JOEL ANTHONY. B. Joel Anthony looked good in his garbage time.. C
Reggie Bullock looked bad in his garbage time.. SG. Pistons. REGGIE BULLOCK. D
F. The Pistons played one good quarter. I don’t know exactly what Van GUndy was supposed to do differently, but I give him credit when Detroit overachieves. And they waaay underachieved in this one.. Head Coach. Pistons. STAN VAN GUNDY