The Detroit Pistons will go big against the San Antonio Spurs, starting Anthony Tolliver over Stanley Johnson.
The Detroit Pistons are rolling out Anthony Tolliver tonight against the San Antonio Spurs, instead of Stanley Johnson.
Surprised? So are we.
SVG stuns us by starting AT for Stanley Johnson tonight vs. #Spurs. He spoke at length about #Spurs size, but it's a guess.
— VinceEllis (@AlabamaScribe56) December 5, 2017
To echo Vince, this move makes a lot of sense from a match up perspective.
The Spurs are starting two seven footers in Paul Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge–two bigs who can also stretch the floor.
Then there’s Rudy Gay who the Spurs are starting at small forward who at 6’9″.
That’s an awfully tall starting front court.
Sure, the Pistons could have elected to sit Tobias Harris instead of Johnson, but Harris has arguably been the Pistons most consistent player.
Harris did play well off the bench a season ago, but evidently Stan Van Gundy did not want to mess with the chemistry of Harris in the starting lineup. After all, Johnson has missed time this season so the starters have somewhat learned to play without him.
In the end, I think this is the right move. The Pistons could have used Johnson’s defense against Rudy Gay, but without a lineup change, one of Johnson and Harris would have to match up with Aldridge and Gasol defensively, which is less than ideal.
It’s good to see that Van Gundy is willing to adjust his lineup to the match up.
Van Gundy has preached four two seasons now about the importance of being able to match up with anyone, though his starting lineups have rarely reflected the necessary adjustments.
Next: https://pistonpowered.com/2017/12/04/instead-regretting-draft-pick-lets-happy-kennard/
It will be interesting how this shakes out for the Pistons and if this is a strategy Van Gundy elects to utilize moving forward.