Pistons are eliminated from playoffs despite Monroe’s return

113. 18. Final. 103. 64

A. Reggie Jackson has been turning the ball over way too often lately. That problem continued in tonight’s game. But that’s really the only nit you could possibly pick.<p class=. PG. Pistons. REGGIE JACKSON

There are those who claim Monroe and Drummond can’t play well together. The evidence we have suggests that Caldwell-Pope struggles a lot more to play well with Monroe. He had put together a nice little stretch with Greg out recently. That appears to be over. Besides a cold shooting night, KCP’s defense was off as he gave the Celtics ten free throws.. SG. Pistons. KENTAVIOUS CALDWELL-POPE. D-

CARON BUTLER. F. Butler missed all five of his shots and if there was a defensive rotation he wasn’t late on, I missed it. Easily the weak link of the starting lineup that may otherwise have been able to overcome an atrocious game from the bench.. SF. Pistons

A. Yes, Monroe came back and the Pistons lost. But he belongs very last in line for that blame. Detroit outscored Boston by 21 points with Monroe on the court. Greg punked every big man the Celtics threw his way on both ends.. PF. Pistons. GREG MONROE

B-. Drummond had a nice 22 and 14 line. But he also gave most of it back, getting repeatedly burned by the likes of Kelly Olynyk.. C. Pistons. ANDRE DRUMMOND

Pistons. JOHN LUCAS III. F-. The bar I set for Lucas is really low. He wouldn’t even be playing if Dinwiddie wasn’t out with a bum ankle. So it is really hard for him to coax a made up grade out of me. But he managed. Besides missing both of his shots, Lucas managed to play such porous defense that the Pistons may have actually been better off playing 4-on-5. Because at least then they wouldn’t have been relying on him to provide some resistance to Isaiah Thomas.<p class=. PG

Prince’s defense was bad, particularly on Jae Crowder who would often get past him and force a teammate to foul in order to prevent an easy bucket.<p>But the rest of his play was good, especially his shooting. Along with Meeks, he salvaged the bench statistically. But sharing the court with Lucas pretty well doomed him from having a chance at actually looking like the team was better off with Prince on the floor.</p>. SF. Pistons. TAYSHAUN PRINCE. B+

SG. Pistons. JODIE MEEKS. A. Meeks hit all four of his shots and guarded Bradley and Turner fairly well. It would be nice if he would shoot a bit more when the shots are falling. But I’ll take an efficient, low-volume game from Jodie over his typical game any day.

D+. Tolliver was handily outplayed by the guy he replaced in Detroit, Jonas Jerebko. I like Tolliver and he’s probably better than Jerebko. But I liked Jerebko better. I really don’t get why Van Gundy apparently didn’t.. PF. Pistons. ANTHONY TOLLIVER

F. It certainly wasn’t all his fault, but Anthony came into the game with four and a half minutes left int he first quarter. The Pistons were winning 14-10. Olynyk canned a long jumper with Anthony playing off of him a bit so Joel started chasing Kelly a bit further from the basket. Then the Cs got 10 straight points in the paint. By the end of the quarter, they were up 30-16. So yeah, Anthony was not really an asset for Detroit.. C. Pistons. JOEL ANTHONY

Head Coach. Pistons. STAN VAN GUNDY. A-. To get a win, Van Gundy probably would have had to play Reggie Jackson basically the entire game or compel Dinwiddie to play through an injury. Given that winning this game would have done nothing for the Pistons, he was right to do neither of those things. And it’s not like he could have expected Thomas to go off like that anyway.<p>If the Pistons had won this game, they would have technically still been alive in the playoff race. But they would have had to run the table and would have needed Boston, Miami, and Indiana to lose every remaining game. And Charlotte could only win one. The odds of that happening are about 1 in 200,000 in case anyone was wondering. So while the Pistons just got eliminated, they didn’t lose very much playoff probability in absolute terms.</p>