Pistons vs Clippers: A Second Look

Taking a deep dive into the film of the Detroit Pistons first lose with Blake Griffin.

The Detroit Pistons lost to the LA Clippers 95 to 108 in a rough game that marked their first loss since the Blake Griffin trade. Obviously, they were going to lose at some point, but what is it that was different in this game? What worked, what didn’t, and what was just random chance? Let’s have a second look.

So Andre was really bad, right?

I mean, he wasn’t good. After a second look, I actually came away not feeling quite so bad about his performance, but it still was bad. First off Andre just didn’t really bring it defensively until the 4th quarter, there was a lot of plays that ended up like this.

Like, what is he even doing on that play? DeAndre Jordan disguises which way the pick is coming, but Drummond nonchalantly walks up to the side it looks like even though it is clearly not set yet, and when Tobias Harris goes the other way he doesn’t even pretend to make up for his original mishap.

It was generally not as glaring as this one, but he had too many defensive possessions where he was out of position or a step slow on a rotation. I was also upset about the number of offensive rebounds he gave up, especially the ones against Montrelz Harrell, but after a second viewing, I don’t think as many of those were really his fault.

The other bad thing was that he apparently decided he had no interest in attacking the hoop when he had the ball in his hands. He ended up taking five or six shots exactly like this:

If he took one of those then whatever, you can’t drive every time (even if he should) but there were a bunch of them. He has a smaller guy on him in Harrell, and he totally lets him off the hook by taking that shot. Drummond doesn’t make Harrell play defense, fight him for position, or box him out, he just flips up some weak crap and it misses. I’m not as anti-hook shot as a lot of people are, but this was bad.

The hook shots were especially frustrating because he was out there with the super-spacing lineup were he was flanked by Anthony Tolliver, Reggie Bullock, Luke Kennard, and Langston Galloway. He has all the space in the world to do what he wants, and he still chooses that dumb hook shot. It is even more frustrating because they got better results with this lineup at first by having Drummond do what he does best, run pick and rolls.

It all started to devolve after the Clippers made a slight adjustment to make the pass to Andre a little bit tighter which resulted in this:

The roll is there but the window is tighter and Kennard doesn’t have the guts to give Drummond a jump ball. The end result is Drummond getting the ball with deep position and taking, yet another hook shot. For what its worth this is a less frustrating post up and hook shot, it came fairly organically and Drummond had decent position at that point. Still would rather have him put it on the floor though.

The good news, long-term at least, is that the Pistons have an easy fix to this problem he is just sitting on the bench in a suit right now. That pass that Kennard passed up is one that Reggie Jackson is hitting every single time until the Clippers have to overplay Drummond’s rolls to such an extent that Jackson is going to have all kinds of space to toss up runners which is death for opponents.

For the time being though I think that with this lineup the Pistons should either really harp on their guards to be braver about tossing that lob, or try harder to make sure a proper ball handler is on the floor even if that sacrifices some of the spacing.

Blake Griffin was pretty bad too right?

Yeah. My first thoughts were not as harsh for Griffin but after a second viewing, he didn’t get a bump in the right direction like Drummond did. His final stat-line wasn’t awful, 19 points on 21 shot equivalents, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists against just 1 turnover. But the problem is that way too often when he touched the ball, it stuck, and he generally tried to do too much with it. That is partially his fault, partially the coaching staffs fault, and partially no ones fault. It is his fault because he does, in fact, have the ball so he is the one actually making decisions on the floor, like this play here:

Griffin gets the ball after a Drummond offensive rebound, just kind of stands there for a bit, and then chucks a three. He obviously didn’t have a lot of time, but a contested three is never going to be an ideal ending point with Griffin. Or this play where he actually converts:

He converts this one after getting a post up set up against Tobias Harris, but there is very little movement leading into it with Griffin going pretty slowly. Griffin also waits until there are only a few seconds left on the clock before making his move which sets him up so that if his first move doesn’t work he’s screwed which will give him trouble later in the game, like here:

Coming out of half-time the Pistons set up a post up for Griffin against Tobias Harris and Griffin gets the ball with twelve seconds left on the clock which is plenty of time. He decides to take a few seconds to hold the ball high in the air and stare down Tobias Harris only to make a move into a coming double team and toss up a kind of desperate hook shot.

Once again, it isn’t even so much that he is making terrible decisions on these plays, it’s just that the ball is sticking too much.

Part of this problem is the coaching staff because they are not always running brilliant things to make Griffin’s life easier.

Ish Smith just stands for a bit before the ball finds Griffin, at which point him and Drummond make a token run at what looks like it should be a pick and roll but is not actually even remotely a pick and roll. Griffin then dribbles a couple more times before taking a contested jumper again.

Of course, this is also kind of no one’s fault because in both Griffin’s decision making and the lack of good play calls part of the problem is that Griffin has been with the team for a little over a week and the Pistons have played every other night.

Blake doesn’t have great chemistry with guys yet to improvise all that effectively out of the post, and the coaching staff hasn’t had enough time to implement a lot of good plays. That said we did see some flashes of both in this game.

The Pistons are starting to show some nice stuff to compliment Griffin’s post-ups, occasionally doing some stuff to help get him in good position:

Here all it takes is a couple of off-ball screens, including a really nice one by Ish Smith that was surely a surprise for Danilo Gallinari, and Blake finds the ball just outside the restricted area and it is easy work to draw a foul.

Getting more of these types of actions onto the court is beneficial for two reasons, first off is that it just works better of course, but the second is that it saves Griffin some major wear and tear. Repeatedly becoming a human battering ram and bulling your way all the way into the paint from far out is totally exhausting and guys can only take so much.

Even when Griffin ends up posting up farther away, the Pistons have started to make some good trends towards making the most of the often limited spacing around him.

That is the starting lineup that features exactly one good shooter. The Pistons make the most of him by having him and Blake play a two-man game with Bullock staying right next to Griffin. This is a nice wrinkle by the Pistons coaching staff that appeared very quickly after Griffin’s arrival.

Setting up like this, Griffin has a very easy pass to the only guy who is really worth passing to and if the Clippers want to send help off one of the non-shooters it will have to come from all the way across the court which will give Griffin and other players more time to read and react.

There was also a play that showed what could come with more comfort and chemistry:

Kennard got his shot very blocked, but the Pistons have enough high-IQ players on the roster that once they get more comfortable with each other I would expect to see more of this kind of stuff where they just read and react very quickly.

In the end, though, the biggest problem Griffin had offensively is that he just missed shots he usually hits. There are obvious problems with spacing and cohesion at times with the Pistons right now, but there were several possessions late where Griffin had space to work in a matchup you like and he just couldn’t convert.

My guess is that Blake makes that nine out of ten times, he had space to work against a bad defender and he got right to the rim but just left it short. There were a few other shots that looked like that in the end, where Griffin ended up with a look you want and he just couldn’t get it to fall.

Perhaps he was a bit tired due to trying to do too much all night, maybe it was just bad luck, maybe he thought too much against his old team, but those are shots he has to make. In good news, this was the fourth close game the Pistons have played since Griffin’s arrival and in the other three, he converted these same plays to close out wins so I’ll take three of four.

The other thing worth mentioning is that Griffin struggled defensively as well in this game. He mostly struggled to get out to shooters effectively, often not closing out far or fast enough.

On that play, he just gives up on the play which gives Harris a wide open three. Most other instances were not so obvious, but he didn’t quite manage to do good enough on his closeouts.

So what was really the difference in the game?

Drummond getting outplayed by Harrell when they were on the floor is a big part of it. An undersized backup center who is mostly an energy guy can’t do that to Drummond. But the biggest thing is that Griffin and Drummond missed some shots they should’ve hit, while the Clippers made the tough plays. Blake Griffin scored 19 points on 21 shot equivalents, while Lou Williams scored 26 points on 16 shot equivalents. If Blake hits a couple more shots and Williams misses a couple of his tough shots then the Pistons probably pull it out, the margin for error is generally pretty tiny in an NBA basketball game.

Where there any bright spots?

Yes, there were! First off is the obvious highlight moment that Griffin had. On one possession he did this:

Which was objectively awesome but also showed exactly why Griffin is such an upgrade over Tobias Harris. Harris was doing the same thing, he had gotten a rebound and took it end to end, but Harris came into the paint and tried to flirt around Anthony Tolliver and finish a tough high arcing shot. Blake Griffin then did the same thing, but he bashed his way through Harrell to finish right at the rim with a foul. Then on the ensuing defensive possession, he did this:

Tobias Harris sure isn’t doing that.

Beyond Griffin, Stanley Johnson continues to be crazy impressive in the way he cannonballs his way to the rim in transition:

And a lot of the (admittedly few) plays where the Pistons had some good movement in their offense it was often started with one of Johnson’s manic drives to the hoop.

I don’t know if it will end up working as a starter, but the fact that I’m even wondering if he can be a good fit while not being able to shoot threes at all is a testament to the aggression and smarts Johnson has been playing with. He will be super interesting to monitor the rest of the season.

Luke Kennard also made another move that will get noticed by opposing teams and continue to earn him respect with the ball in his hands by getting Lou Williams badly with a fake.

Obviously, Reggie Bullock played a great offensive game, but I don’t think that needs a ton of explanation, dude can shoot and the Pistons desperately need it. Mostly the Pistons were bound to lose at some point, they have one shooter in their starting lineup, are integrating their number one option on the fly, and have been using an eight-man rotation.

There was going to be a game where those obstacles tipped enough that they couldn’t overcome it no matter how many ferocious drives, rebounds, and defensive stops they managed. Also, Lou Williams is really good and so is Austin Rivers. Onto the Hawks.