After a disappointing 91-109 loss to the Toronto Raptors, the Detroit Pistons look to bounce back and register their first win of the season against the Orlando Magic in their home opener.
Not much went right for the Detroit Pistons during their opening game on Wednesday against the Toronto Raptors.
Andre Drummond was left dazed early in the first quarter after taking an accidental elbow to the jaw from Jonas Valanciunas who dominanted in his absence, the reserve big men were constantly in foul trouble and DeMar DeRozen couldn’t miss a shot on his way to 40 points on 17 of 27 shooting.
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However, the Raptors did make the Eastern Conference Finals last season, so perhaps this wasn’t to be unexpected with Reggie Jackson sitting on the sideline.
The Orlando Magic on the other hand should be a much more manageable task.
The Magic also lost their opening game 108-96 against a Miami Heat team many have expected to struggle as they enter a period of transition.
Shooting was a major problem for the Magic in this game, going at 38.6 percent from the field and 35.3 percent from three.
However, they do have a couple of big men the Pistons should be aware of on the perimeter.
Serge Ibaka, who has developed into a decent outside shooter made 2 of 4 threes against the Heat, while Aaron Gordon has begun to expand his range, making both of his three-point attempts.
Outside of those two, three-point shooting shouldn’t be too much of a concern for the Pistons.
Of the six Magic players who took a three against the Heat, only Gordon and Ibaka shot better than 33 percent.
In fact, Evan Fournier was the only other player on the team who made a three-pointer, with 2 of his 6 attempts finding the bottom of the net.
The Pistons’ wing defenders were able to shut down the Raptors’ outside shooters effectively and kept them to 16.7 percent from deep, with only DeMarre Carroll and Kyle Lowry making threes.
Stopping Nikola Vucevic will also need to be a priority for the Pistons, as he plays a similar style game to Valanciunas who dropped 32 points and 11 rebounds.
Hopefully Drummond will be up and firing at 100 percent against the Magic, as he looked completely out of it at times after returning from his hit to the jaw, which saw him uncharacteristically turn the ball over four times..
Offensively, the Pistons will need a huge improvement over what we saw in Toronto.
Outside of Tobias Harris, Marcus Morris, Andre Drummond and Aron Baynes, who are all big men, nobody on the Pistons shot over 38 percent from the field.
Caldwell-Pope shot 2 of 9, Ish Smith was 3 of 10 and both Beno Udrih and Stanley Johnson were 1 of 5 and 1 of 4 respectively.
When your starting and off the bench back court is combining for just 7 of 28, you’re probably not going to win a lot of games.
The team also shot an ugly 18.2 percent on their 22 three-point attempts.
There are a couple of bright spots going into the game however, as Tobias Harris and Marcus Morris both played well and led the team in scoring.
Harris finished with 22 points and 5 rebounds, however he turned the ball over 5 times, while Morris scored 17 points to go along with 9 rebounds and 3 assists.
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If the Pistons are able to tighten up their shooting, they may be able to start to find a rhythm against the Magic that they can carry forward for this period without Reggie Jackson.