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Detroit Pistons: This Team Might Not Be What We Thought It Was

By Duncan Smith

Dec 18, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah (13) and Detroit Pistons forward Marcus Morris (13) go for the ball during the first half at the United Center. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 18, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah (13) and Detroit Pistons forward Marcus Morris (13) go for the ball during the first half at the United Center. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports /
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There are some things we thought we knew about the Detroit Pistons not long ago, and it’s time to revisit these conclusions. The results may surprise you.

At the beginning of December, I wrote a couple of posts on the struggles of the offense and the success of the defense of the Detroit Pistons. At the time, the Pistons a 9-9 team with a plodding and ineffective offense, but a strong defense particularly on the perimeter.

On that night I wrote about the Pistons excellent perimeter defense which focused on putting Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on opposing elite wing scorers and preventing opponents from taking three-pointers, the Phoenix Suns took 33 threes and scored 122 points against the Pistons defense in a game that went to overtime.

I found the timing of this defensive performance to be most annoying.

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The most surprising thing is, this plodding offense of the Pistons scored 127 points and the Pistons shot 50.6 percent from the field and 44.4 percent from three-point range themselves. Marcus Morris scored 24 points on 10 shots from the field, pulled down 14 rebounds, and Reggie Jackson went ballistic with 34 points and 16 assists.

The eternal pessimist, I chalked this up to a ridiculous outlying performance against a pretty poor Suns defense. That’s true, of course, as the Suns have the NBA’s 18th best defense, but unbeknownst to me at the time, just 19 games into the season with a team that had just gotten back over the .500 mark, there was more going on.

The Pistons offense has awakened over the past eleven games, since defeating the Houston Rockets 116-105 at home on November 30th. Over that span, the Pistons are 8-3, and have an offensive rating of 105.8 points per 100 possessions, which is seventh in the NBA.

The Pistons have the 10th best effective field goal percentage at 50.6 but their true shooting percentage is still quite poor at 53.6 percent. That’s because true shooting factors in free throw shooting, and the Pistons struggles are well documented with that particular category.

That’s a number that won’t improve much as long as Andre Drummond is shooting 37.5 percent from the free throw line.

Speaking of Drummond, he’s settled in at a pretty consistent 18.2 points and 16.4 rebounds per game while not getting into foul trouble with any regularity. As long as he can produce like that and not get himself pulled from games due to recklessly fouling, the Pistons will just deal with the free throw shooting and consider themselves lucky to have the young big man.

Reggie Jackson just won his second Eastern Conference Player of the Week on Monday, and his play has been the best of his career in these 11 games. He’s averaging 23.6 points, 3.9 rebounds and 7.2 assists per game on 47.9 percent shooting and 38.1 percent from behind the arc.

Jackson has excelled, but the most important person in this 11-game stretch has been none other than Marcus Morris. As Braden discussed recently, he has taken over as the Pistons’ third-most important player and it’s not all that close.

Morris is scoring 15.4 points per game on 46.9 percent shooting and 45.7 percent from long-range, and he’s added 4.8 points per game during that time frame.

Perhaps most importantly is the defense he has unexpectedly brought to the table in this stretch. Over the last 11 games, Morris is holding his opponent to 36 percent shooting, and according to stats.nba.com his opponent averages 42 percent, meaning that he is holding the player he guards to six percent (6.1 to be exact) below that player’s average on the season.

That -6.1 differential is tied for fifth-best in the NBA among players who defend an average of 10 field goal attempts or more per game in the past 11 games. On the season, Morris is holding his opponent to 3.2 percent below average, which is 16th in the entire NBA.

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The Pistons have also shown a propensity for performing well in the clutch overall this season. They’re actually the seventh-best team in the NBA in clutch situations, defined as leading or trailing by five points or less with five minutes or less to go.

In such situations, the Pistons have a net rating of +18.8 points per 100 possessions, and they have a 10-6 record in games that have clutch situations. This is a team with more heart and intelligence than we expected–as it’s hard to win a tight game against NBA competition without high basketball IQ, and I’m becoming convinced that this team is for real.

The last four Piston losses were a 105-103 overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, a 93-92 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on a preposterous last-second buzzer-beating three-pointer, a blowout 104-84 loss to the Charlotte Hornets, and an 87-83 loss to the Brooklyn Nets.

It’s safe to say that as this team learns each other and what it’s capable of (remembering that the two longest-tenured starters are 22 years old, and Reggie Jackson is only 55 games into his full-time starting NBA career), these bad losses like the Nets loss will become more uncommon, and these close losses like the Clippers and Grizzlies losses will become less frequent as well.

Next: Reggie Jackson Is Earning The Clutch Reputation

This team is not a finished product, even though the roster moves may be complete for the season, and as they continue to grow together, they may find themselves climbing the Eastern Conference rankings.

At this point in time, the Pistons are just one game behind the Atlanta Hawks who are third in the East. They are also one game behind the Miami Heat.

The Pistons can close the gap tonight with a win in Miami.

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