Second Look: Detroit Pistons at Cleveland Cavaliers

The Pistons lost again, by a lot of points. Some things may be starting together while others remain very wrong, let’s get into this.

It stinks getting blown out every game, and it stinks even worse since with each loss that little bit of remaining the hope of going on a run and making the playoffs gets smaller.

For the rest of the season though, I think we will approach these without thinking about the playoffs being gone since that ship has probably sailed already and will only lead to more pain.

We are not focusing on the final score, we are focusing on the long term.

Why did Larry Nance become Moses Malone?

The Pistons made some mental mistakes, but some of his offensive rebounds were just bad luck by the Pistons. Let’s start with the mental mistakes, often being made by Blake Griffin.

This is going to be a theme so remember it.

Blake Griffin is starting to get comfortable and set enough that he is starting to get his own on both ends of the floor. He’s shown signs of life attacking the basket since James Ennis became a starter and his numbers reflect that. He is still struggling to do good stuff off the ball though.

I’ve talked about this before with his defense, Blake Griffin never was asked to make this rotation with the Clippers. DeAndre Jordan was never that aggressive attacking pick and rolls, which meant that Jordan would be able to cover that pass while making it easier for the ball-handler to get a shot off and Griffin could stay comfortable wherever his man was.

He has really struggled with this rotation, and Nance took full advantage of it. The Pistons also just didn’t really feel like boxing him out combined with bad luck bounces like this:

So on one hand, Griffin or Drummond or someone should get a body on Nance, but on the other hand that is just a bad bounce away from the good rebounders. Drummond has been better about actually boxing people out this year and it has been a good improvement, I honestly think he came into the game figuring that Nance was not going to be a real threat and he paid the price for it. The bigger problem was the defensive rotations.

What is that rotation supposed to look like then?

One of the weak-side defenders crash down to stop the roll, then wait for Drummond to return and scramble out to shooters. Here Griffin does it right.

Here is the same situation with Anthony Tolliver executing as well.

And Griffin again but without Nance trying to get all the way to the hoop, but Griffin is there to deter him from trying.

There are just too many possessions where Griffin has struggled to make that rotation and its been a real problem for the defense. Part of it is just a reality of a new guy adjusting, Griffin has played a certain way on defense his entire career and now he’s being asked to do it differently. Some breakdowns are to be expected, take this play for example and just watch Griffin.

It doesn’t end up costing the Pistons, but you can see that Griffin forgot to make his rotation but he did briefly realize it and took a half-step to the paint before he saw that the play had already moved on. Then just look at the way he moves the rest of the possession, he isn’t really involved in the play but he just kind of bounces there.

His rotations have not been crisp or confident or correct with any kind of regularity. I would once again urge him to go full speed, and then even though he will get it wrong plenty, at least then when he gets it right he will really get it right.

That above play is also one example of a bad bounce that went against the Pistons. There were plenty of those.

The reason for hope with Griffin is that when doing things he’s more comfortable with he is starting to look better. The Pistons appear to be making a permanent change to have Griffin be less aggressive attacking pick and rolls and he’s looked much better.

LeBron James finishes this play because he is very good, but that is a very solid defensive possession for Griffin. He shows to the ball-handler, hustles back over after the pass is made, sticks with James all the way to the hoop to make at least some sort of contest, and does it all without fouling.

His confidence in what he’s doing also seems to have an impact on his effort in a way. On that above play, he has great effort and hustle to stick with the play, the moment he becomes unsure he slows down though and that is something that will have to change.

You said it’s like that on offense too?

Yeah. Have a look at this play, I think it shows pretty well where Griffin and the Pistons are as far as getting it together on offense.

See how Ish Smith is pushing it in transition and instead of Griffin running to the hoop or something to try and help Smith get the transition bucket he just kind of stands there waiting for the ball. After he gets the ball he makes a great move for an awesome dunk.

The fact that he ended up going full clearout on the post-up isn’t even a big worry. It’s the fact that they had a legitimate fast-break chance and he was just like “Nah give me the ball so I can post up”. He’s getting some Russell Westbrook in him, where he does great stuff when he has the ball, but when he doesn’t he just kind of stands around waiting for the ball.

Check out this possession where it was really quite bad.

Like, that works out in the end with a Drummond bucket, but Griffin isn’t doing anyone any good out there. When Drummond decides to hold onto the ball, go set a screen for someone, roll to the hoop, do something other than stand 30 feet from the basket.

And again, even on plays where it isn’t so obvious or damaging, he just isn’t doing much when he doesn’t have the ball.

There Griffin makes the right play to push in transition to see if anything opens up after nothing does he passes out to get some motion going when the ball finds him back he makes a good, aggressive move to the basket. But in between the time the ball is in his hands, he stands there, calling for the ball back.

So think back to the last time we spoke. And I highlighted how much better the offense moves with Drummond on the floor running the motion stuff without Griffin. This is a difference after the ball moves on from Drummond he does stuff. He rolls to the hoop, he goes and sets an off-ball screen, sets an on-ball screen, something other than stand there calling for the ball. It is especially damaging since Griffin is not a good shooter.

He hit a few shots the last couple of games though.

I’m glad you mentioned that. When Griffin shoots in rhythm and without thinking too much his shot looks so much better.

When he catches the ball, doesn’t overthink, and shoots while in the flow of the offense he is less awful and more just kind of mediocre which is better. When combined with the fact that he is attacking the hoop more, as much as I am on the podium about his lack of movement, it is great to see him getting things going a bit. Like, a week ago he is forcing up a three here:

They also finally ran a couple of pick and rolls with Griffin and Drummond at the free throw line so it actually worked.

It is awkward, but Griffin and Drummond are good enough to work through that. Do that more, good things will come from it. Defenses can’t just sag off Griffin that close to the hoop so it can open up small enough spaces for them to make plays.

The bench didn’t do so well.

They actually didn’t do terribly, they just could not get shots to fall, which is a weakness of the current iteration of the bench mob. You are relying on Dwight Buycks and Stanley Johnson to do a lot of creation on offense which isn’t a great thing. Tolliver and Galloway can really shoot of course, but Eric Moreland doesn’t really score so well. Moreland is almost comically shot-shy.

Like, man. He gets the ball with a foot in the restricted area and no immediate defenders and he still turns around to try and re-set. That can’t happen. I will say this for the current iteration of the bench mob. They defend like crazy, and if Dwight Buycks and Ish Smith continue to defend like they have, I wouldn’t be shocked if Buycks remained in the backup minutes when Jackson returns.

I mean look at the way everyone just flies around, swarms the ball, and then recovers. On nights where Dwight Buycks can’t get shots to fall (like this game), they will struggle to score, but they will defend every night and the reality is that Ish Smith is probably not going to make them much better offensively. I’d still figure that Buycks has two more games in the rotation, but I know that Stan Van Gundy loves the defensive effort the bench mob has given since putting Moreland and Buycks back in the rotation.

Back to Griffin’s defense, his guy (LeBron James) had a huge night again. Are you going to go after him for it?

I mean, I would, but…

… I actually think I’ll give Griffin a pass on this one. If LeBron is hitting those, there is literally nothing you can do. If the Pistons had lost by six with LeBron hitting five of seven three-pointers then I’d put my hands up and not care at all. Nothing Griffin could’ve done differently on those. But just so that we continue the trend of making sure you know that Griffin is not playing hard enough on defense (consistently enough) I give you his attempt at transition defense.

Yeah, that ain’t great.

Any little things?

Andre Drummond has a real beef about the way fouls are called and not called when he is going for rebounds. How do you call Drummond for a foul here?

Drummond gets into great position, he doesn’t put his arm out and throws his rear end as a battering ram for perfect position and they call him for a foul. Guys get away with all kinds of crap boxing Drummond out, but he’s so big that it never gets called, while Drummond gets called for this crap by being so much bigger that it looks bad. Drummond should maybe learn to flop this offseason.

This was just one play, but Eric Moreland had a rare instance of not going full-speed for something and getting caught in the middle.

If Moreland decides to just let the shot happen it is understandable, he isn’t getting out there. But if you do that then turn around and box out, if you are not going to box out then rush out to the shooter and at least make him think about you. Don’t get caught in the middle there.

Anything fun?

Drummond did not have a great game, but he did have a couple of fun plays. First off, he hit an honest to god jumper in the opening moments of the game.

Just like they drew it up.

He also had a great defensive possession for another example of where he has so improved this year.

That is perfection right there. He holds that middle ground so that Hood doesn’t have a clear lob or path to the hoop, and the pounces the moment Hood decides to try and go to the hoop and smothers him. Drummond was not always on top of things defensively in this game but that is an awesome defensive play.

Final verdict?

Everything went against the Pistons. Guys are making dumb mistakes too. Griffin is going to still have adjusting problems but he should be able to do more movement off the ball on offense and not be quite so out of sorts on defense, but he continues to progress on both ends so I won’t get to upset about that even if the progress is slower than I’d like. It is pretty confounding how bad Ish Smith has gotten defensively. He’s never been all that good, but he has been especially bad. Mostly though, this just wasn’t the Pistons night.