Second Look: Pistons at Raptors

The Pistons got blown out for the third straight night, but let’s still go dig through it to find out what was going on. Good or bad.

First of all…

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Of course. The worst news is that Blake Griffin‘s total inability to close out on people is officially a problem, and not just an “Oh he’s getting comfortable” on either.

Those are just a lack of effort, desire, fight, whatever. That can’t happen, but it continues to happen.

Power forwards are killing the Pistons with long guns consistently and this is the reason why Blake Griffin just doesn’t have much interest in actually stopping anyone from taking open threes. There was one three where it wasn’t so much an effort thing as much as a not being comfortable enough in the scheme thing.

You can see Griffin directing traffic as he hangs back while Drummond hounds Jonas Valanciunas for no reason other than that he can. This is not a situation he was put in very much with the Clippers who have DeAndre Jordan sag back much more.

His entire career, Griffin is not having to fall back and gets to just follow Serge Ibaka on the perimeter, instead, he has to hang back and then isn’t quick enough to see the opening, to his credit he actually tries to close out on this one.

That possession isn’t a bit worry, he will get more comfortable, the other ones are not okay.

Beyond Griffin is that every good shooter in the league can pretty much just shoot over Ish Smith even when he is in the right spot.

The Pistons keep getting burned by long balls because two of their players are constantly giving up open shots to good shooters. In the last game, Ish Smith had several possessions where he just gave up open three balls to good shooters as well.

But the scheme!

Yeah, the scheme is part of the problem, that’s been covered effectively by Matthew Way so I won’t get too into it, but the Pistons’ defense has remained pretty solid all season despite occasionally giving up too many threes because they create tons of turnovers and chase enough three-pointers into long twos. Griffin’s slow closeouts combined with him not knowing the scheme well has tipped that equation against the Pistons. Reggie Jackson‘s return will help a bit here since at least when he is in the right spot guys can’t shoot over him, but Griffin has to get some fire in him.

What about the collapse to start the second half?
What second half?

Where is the offense at then?
Still making some good progress but also some things that were good ideas are not really working.

What good ideas?
The main one is putting the ball into Reggie Bullock‘s hands more. The Pistons have gotten him involved more by giving him dribble hand-offs with some regularity.

This was a good idea and is worth exploring, Bullock was killing it as a purely off-ball option and the starting lineup needs some offensive options other than someone plowing into multiple defenders to toss up really difficult shots. Bullock has struggled to execute though.

Here Ibaka comes up on him close enough that he has an easy slip pass to Griffin but he just doesn’t see it and instead of bricks a contested jumper.
His handle is also maybe just a bit too sloppy to really be allowed to dribble much.

Even when he does get to the right spot for an open look, he is struggling to stop on a dime and hit the in-between looks.

In that last play, you can see that he doesn’t really get steady when he shoots it, and that’s been a theme out of dribble hand-offs. It is possible that the Pistons just keep running them at least until Reggie Jackson comes back because they might as well, but for now, it has really not worked well. Bullock is probably better off, for now, as a guy who is purely off-ball unless he starts to show real improvement soon.

He also had one play that just stood out to me as him making a rare mental mistake on offense.

He has to be aware of the shot clock and know that someone is about to take a jumper. Him taking a jumper is much better than Griffin.

Bullock’s efficiency has stayed decent though?

It’s dropped off a lot from his previous highs, but yes it hasn’t been awful. The reason is that they still find him as a spot up guy and cutter, that’s where all his makes came from in this game. When he is purely off-ball he remains almost comically efficient and the opposite when he is on the ball so you can isolate them.

What about the rest of the offense?
Depending on who you ask, it is either a mess that is a total inditement of the coaching staff’s ability to get players ready and/or the players not having the needed basketball IQ to execute a good offense because of possessions like this:

Other people would say that it is a work in progress and that for the bad possessions they often turn around and nail it to show what the finished product will look like. This is literally the possession following the above one.

It is not all that clean but once they finally get some traction on the Tolliver drive they quickly whip the ball over for a corner three from a good shooter.

So which of those people are right?

Hard to say for sure. There are too many of those terrible possessions where they run lots of cuts and such and it just doesn’t yield anything so the ball just sort of sits out on the perimeter until someone heaves a terrible shot.

One thing that is a big difference between those plays, is to look how stagnant Griffin is in the first one and then compare it to the multiple screens he sets in the second one.

Griffin’s numbers have not been good since coming to Detroit, but that is large because teams are sending comical amounts of effort to stop him.

When he spends a possession standing around not doing anything it makes it easy for defenses to cover everyone, once he starts to move and throw his weight around defenses react to it and suddenly there are cracks that can be exploited.

The one thing that is worth remembering is that comfort and continuity is not something that happens overnight. In both the above plays the lineup is Blake Griffin who is brand new, James Ennis who is brand new, Dwight Buycks who has still only been with the Pistons a couple of months, Luke Kennard who is a rookie, and Anthony Tolliver. Compare the way guys move in those clips with this one:

This lineup has five guys on the floor who have all spent lots of time playing NBA basketball together. Look how much more fluid and confident they are in moving and reacting to each other.

That is the benefit of continuity.

Coaching and a good scheme can make that come faster but it doesn’t just magically happen somehow, it happens by running ugly plays and learning through mistakes and figuring each other out.

Yeah, but Stan Van Gundy got a say in getting rid of a lot of the Pistons continuity.

Fair point.

That’s why it depends on who you ask how bad the offense is. It is not unfair to heap on Van Gundy because he brought these guys in so he should’ve been more prepared for their arrival.

Well, what else did they do well?

They’ve started to get Griffin going to the hoop as a roll man a bit in the last three games.

That one was with James Ennis, but they got some good results doing pick and rolls with Dwight Buycks too.

They also have finally started to get Griffin involved as a passer when he catches the ball rolling to the hoop:

Most teams are going way under the screen and killing the play of course, but its still clever how they have Drummond drift to the opposite side to take Valanciunas out of the play and give Griffin a clear pass to Bullock.

So what is the state of the offense? As a whole?

Bad right now, but not without hope.

How you feel about the offense really depends on your confidence level in both Van Gundy and the current players to turn that hope and potential into something that actually yields results. A lot of people have totally lost faith in both the players and coaches.

Don’t cop out. How much faith do you have in them?

My level of faith is slightly high.

They have an impossible puzzle where your best two players don’t shoot and are forced to play them a lot with a point guard who doesn’t shoot. And whenever they try to fix this by putting shooters on the floor with Griffin the defense gives away any gains they’ve made with the offense.

I mostly keep thinking about how much better a lot of the sets will work with Reggie Jackson instead of Ish Smith and I think it will work out, but I’m also looking really big picture.

If you think the offense won’t get fixed this season and thus the season is lost I won’t argue with you too much. I’d disagree but there is a lot of evidence to support the thought process.

What if Drummond learned to shoot?

I mean, obviously, in a perfect world you want everyone to be able to shoot. That said I am for sure not pushing Drummond to try and do what Dwight Howard has done this year. He’s so good in the paint and at the rim that you don’t want him going too far regardless, the one thing I would hope he works on a lot are these push shots.

It isn’t pulling him from the paint or getting into his head about not going for rebounds and doing what he is best at, but if he could get consistent with those sorts of shots it would keep teams from standing totally back and walling up directly in front of the rim which would help.

Remember that the two guys he needs to open up space for are Reggie Jackson and Blake Griffin, neither guys need a lot of space to do their things. That said, even with that push shot, I’d rather Drummond work on his finishing in traffic and his defense first.

Any small things?

Yeah. Drummond fully got over his Jonas Valanciunas-related demons. Valanciunas has given Drummond fits in the past with pump fakes and roaring drives. Drummond showed exactly how far he has come with his defense in this game, just look at this play:

He manages to get his hands up to make sure that if Valanciunas actually shoots it will be heavily contested without leaving his low defensive stance to open up any driving lanes until Valanciunas tosses the ball away to the other end of the court. That has always been where Drummond has struggled. He so often has been either too aggressive and getting way out of position or too passive to the point that it doesn’t matter if he’s in position because he won’t stop anyone. He’s finding the right spot this season.

Also, if you wonder what people mean when they say Dwight Buycks does not always see the floor well, watch James Ennis here and you shouldn’t have to wonder that anymore.

Poor James Ennis just stands there like “Hey, I’m open you have in interest in that?”

We also nearly saw the first (I think) Drummond to Griffin lob dunk but Drummond blew it with an awful pass.

This is something the Pistons should be sure to keep in the playbook. With the center away from the paint to guard Drummond Griffin should have an easy time out-jumping whoever the help defense is.

Anything fun?

Someone forgot to put Diesel in Stanley Johnson and accidentally used normal unleaded gasoline.

Lastly, Andre Drummond is worth the price of admission.

That’s it though.

Are you really not going to go into the second half?

Nope. There honestly wasn’t a whole lot there. They fell behind with some dumb turnovers while the Raptors simultaneously hit a bunch of shots. I thought most of the things that were notable going forward I’d already pretty much gotten in the first half. One area where I may re-visit would be to pull a couple clips of Henry Ellenson late in the game.