Detroit Pistons continue home stand against the Atlanta Hawks

It’s the battle of the two worst attended teams in the NBA as the 2-9 Atlanta Hawks come to town to face the 8-3 Detroit Pistons.

Despite the 97-114 blowout scoreline in the Detroit Pistons’ win over the Indiana Pacers, things were actually much more competitive than they seem.

The Pacers seriously pushed them at different stages of the game, but ultimately the Pistons took over down the stretch.

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They received positive contributions from almost every player who stepped onto the court, with standout performances from Tobias Harris (23 points, 8 rebounds) and Andre Drummond (14 points, 21 rebounds).

As for the Atlanta Hawks, it’s been tough going to start the season, as many expected.

Wins have been hard to come by but in spite of what their record currently indicates they’ve been quite competitive in a lot of their games.

The shining example of why they shouldn’t be taken lightly was their 117-115 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

In that game, they shot the three extremely well (48 percent) and seven of the eight players who played more than 19 minutes scored in double-digits.

Despite having a very young and inexperienced team there are still players who are dangerous.

Dennis Schroder can be more than a handful when at his best, Kent Bazemore is a very talented player and Taurean Prince is having a promising start to his sophomore season as he now finds himself in a starting role.

Facing a Cavaliers team full of good three-point shooters they managed to keep them to just 28 percent from behind the arc.

It’s very much possible for the Hawks to compete with the best teams in the league, but to do so they need a big performance from just about every player who suits up that night.

The Hawks shouldn’t be disrespected, but if the Pistons bring energy to the game they should walk away comfortable winners.

The biggest advantage the Pistons have is Andre Drummond.

Dewayne Dedmon, Mike Muscala and Mile Plumlee are the only legitimate NBA-calibre centres on the Hawks’ roster currently.

Muscala is out of action with an ankle injury and unlikely to play against the Pistons, while Plumlee is sitting on the sidelines for the next few weeks with a quadriceps injury.

This means Dedmon is going to be forced to guard Drummond for close to every second that he’s on the court.

Dedmon himself has actually been battling with an ankle injury recently too, to make matters worse.

Considering how well Drummond has been drawing fouls recently it’s very likely we see the Hawks having to resort to someone like John Collins or even Luke Babbitt attempting to guard him, which cannot end well.

The Hawks’ injury woes don’t stop at their big-man stocks though.

Marco Belinelli is expected to return against the Pistons but has been dealing with a lingering Achilles injury and it remains to be seen if he’ll be at 100 percent.

Former-Piston Ersan Ilyasova is currently out for one to two weeks with a knee injury and DeAndre’ Bembry has a fractured wrist.

Even Dennis Schroder hasn’t been able to escape unscathed, dealing with an ankle issue, an injury that has managed to plague around 20 percent of the team at once.

The Hawks are having the worst possible luck, especially considering they were already expected to be playing for ping-pong balls this season.

It’s incredibly hard to see how the Hawks manage to contain this Pistons team that is currently riding a wave of momentum.

Even if they somehow managed to limit Drummond’s impact they’ll still need to contain Reggie Jackson, Avery Bradley and Tobias Harris, which seems extremely unlikely.

In previous seasons this would be seen as a trap game for the Pistons.

Next: 3 takeaways from the Pistons win over the Pacers

However, this season has a different feeling to it and the expectation will be for them to continue to defend home court, no matter how many people turn up for the game on Friday night.

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