Grading the Detroit Pistons’ loss to the Utah Jazz
The Detroit Pistons struggled again during their current western road trip, losing 110-77 to the Utah Jazz in blowout fashion for a second straight night.
As the night went on, the Detroit Pistons‘ defense struggled to stop Utah’s balanced offensive attack. Forward Gordon Hayward and guards Rodney Hood and George Hill each recorded more than 20 points each.
Meanwhile, it was a horrible shooting night from the Pistons as a whole. Tobias Harris was the team’s leading scorer with 13 points. Just two other players – Marcus Morris (11 points) and Stanley Johnson (10 points) – were in double digits. No one made more than four shots from the field. The team finished 39.5 percent shooting overall.
Detroit also strongly missed Kentavious Caldwell-Pope‘s presence tonight. With the 23-year-old shooting guard out with a Grade 2 rotator cuff strain, Hood had a monster night, scoring 27 points with a +33 plus-minus rating. He also made a season-high seven three-pointers, many of which were on wide open shots.
The Jazz made 16 of their 31 attempts from downtown overall, including this one to end the third quarter:
Joe Johnson from distance. Been that kinda night. https://t.co/7pJnUty9rN
— SLAM (@SLAMonline) January 14, 2017
That buzzer beater from 60 feet from Joe Johnson put the exclamation point on a bad loss for the Pistons tonight.
D+. <a rel=. PG. Detroit Pistons. REGGIE JACKSON
D. Marcus Morris struggled mightily tonight. He finished tonight with 11 points on 15 shots, making just three of them. He also did not perform well on the defensive end, recording a -22 plus-minus rating. Overall, Morris did not impress at all in Salt Lake City.. SF. Detroit Pistons. MARCUS MORRIS
TOBIAS HARRIS. C-. Tobias Harris had at least one positive tonight – he led the Detroit Pistons in scoring. The negative about that? He had 13 points on four-of-12 shooting. Like everyone else in the Pistons lineup tonight, he struggled to make a full impact.. PF. Detroit Pistons
C-. <a rel=. C. Detroit Pistons. ANDRE DRUMMOND
C. Stanley Johnson shot the ball well tonight, making four of his five attempts to record 10 points off the bench. Unfortunately, that was the most he did. He had two turnovers in the loss as well as a -11 plus-minus rating in 25 minutes of playing time.. SF. Detroit Pistons. STANLEY JOHNSON
C-. With Kentavious Caldwell-Pope out tonight due to injury, <a rel=. C. Detroit Pistons. ARON BAYNES
Detroit Pistons. BOBAN MARJANOVIC. C-. <a rel=. C
D+. There were so many issues with the Pistons’ play overall, I do not know where to start. The Pistons struggled to gain any kind of momentum on both ends of the floor. They also constantly left players wide open on the perimeter for open shots, especially Rodney Hood. At the same time, like Duncan Smith mentioned in his recap about the Pistons-Warriors game yesterday, not everything can be blamed on Stan Van Gundy. He tried his best to make adjustments with the talent he had available, especially with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope out due to injury. Unfortunately, it just did not work out in the end.. Head Coach. Detroit Pistons. STAN VAN GUNDY