Second Look: Detroit Pistons at Denver Nuggets.

The Pistons lost in what ended up being a fairly competitive game with a furious comeback. What worked, what didn’t, and is Dwight Buycks the greatest player ever?

So this is probably the end of even the slimiest playoff hopes, right?

Yeah with this loss it put them in “literal act of God” territory for a playoff birth. If they could’ve won two of the first three of this road trip it was actually conceivable they could get to 42 wins on the season given how many games they will play against tankers down the stretch. But this is probably it, but just as much as the fact that if they can’t manage to beat the Jazz or Nuggets then they just are not going to be good enough to go on that kind of run.

So what does that mean for the rest of the season?

Gotta look for the little things. The Pistons cannot tank themselves into a position where there is any real chance to keep their pick so they may as well keep working to figure out how to get this group playing better. As such, this space is going to become a science lab. No anger, no nothing. What is working, what isn’t. Things that fail are just another chance to succeed with something else.

Ok, so what are we starting with then?

Something that is a total failure and I’m still upset about.

Its Ish Smith isn’t it.

Yeah, I didn’t want to do him like this, but it is too much now. I like Ish Smith, he is a really good backup. I’ve detailed his offensive issues in this space before, but the thing that really ruined him over the last month or so is that his defense has fallen off to a comical level.

Smith has never been a very good defender, his size will always be a problem and he has a tendency to gamble too much. Even with that, he plays very hard and on the back of his effort level and speed he can do some good to at least generally come close to being a net neutral. I have no idea what happened, but he’s gone off the deep end. Here we go, some clips of Ish Smith attempting to play defense against the Denver Nuggets.

Smith has been especially bad as a transition defender. What do you think is going through his head here? He falls back to the paint to cover, um, nobody. Meanwhile allowing Jamal Murray, an excellent shooter, a wide open three-pointer. Oh yeah, and Murray is his cover in the first place so getting confused on matchups in transition isn’t even a good excuse.

This one doesn’t end up burning the Pistons, but once again, what on earth does he think he is accomplishing here? He leaves Jamal Murray (once again, an excellent shooter) completely alone in the corner to come down and what? Nikola Jokic is not nearly threatening enough as a roll-man to justify that and Drummond is in position anyways even if Gary Harris ends up making a good play to finish on the other side.

Here is the most confounding thing here though, even if you think that the act of Smith abandoning Murray to crash down here is a good idea in principle, Ish Smith is maybe six feet tall! If Jokic gets the ball what on earth is Smith going to do?

So after the first pick, he does fine. He slips under which isn’t ideal but he does it quickly and effectively. Then Murray shoots back to Jokic and Smith decides to stop and take a swipe at Jokic for reasons that can surely only be known to him, which in turn begins the Pistons scrambling and the Nuggets have an easy time passing around until the ball finds a wide open Murray for the three. Murray is open because Smith decided to crash down again, at the very least that decision is a bit defensible even if it was probably wrong.

This next one is presented without comment.

Yep. That is an NBA veteran.

What is the path he takes? He ends up going way under the screen and allowing Murray another wide open three, even if Murray misses this one.

There really are no words for why Smith is so intent on treating every guy he guards as though they shoot as poorly as he does himself.

That was painful.

You’re telling me. Also please notice that those were not way spread out over the entire game, the first clip is right at the end of the first half and the last one is a little over half-way through the third quarter. This is simply because I decided for that to be the arbitrary place to look for this and sure enough not even a full quarter passed before I had six great examples.

He has totally ruined so many defensive possessions by just making stupid decisions that it is infuriating. There really isn’t another way to put it. These are things that rookies do, not veterans who know better.

Anything other than Smith that was bad?

Yeah, just one thing. I’ve mentioned it in this space before but Blake Griffin needs to be a little more engaged when he doesn’t have the ball. Watch the screen he sets off the ball here.

Now compare that with Andre Drummond doing largely the same thing.

It is worth mentioning that some of what appears to be laziness from Blake is probably discomfort. It is easy to forget that he is still learning the ropes and that leads to hesitation, he’s gotten more active away from the ball in recent games to testify to this.

So, for now, it isn’t a huge red flag, but it is something to watch the rest of the way and early next season. Griffin has to play as hard and aggressive when he isn’t getting the ball than when he is.

Also worth noting, this is a big reason why I have always argued against Drummond having an effort problem. He is not always locked all the way in but does gritty stuff with regular effort more than pretty much any other player of his caliber in the entire league. Only dudes like Al Horford are on his level for being willing to consistently do the unglamorous things with enthusiasm while still being such a central player.

Dwight Buycks really turned the game around.

I don’t actually think Buycks was that important to the turnaround but he was definitely part of it. Take this play here for how different he is from the way Smith is playing right now.

First, he sticks with Murray the entire possession and ends up forcing a tough shot (without fouling Murray. Smith has tons of trouble contesting without fouling on jump-shooters) and then when the Pistons come up the floor on the other side he attacks while looking to score to force the defense to react to him. That makes a difference.

So what was important if it wasn’t Buycks?

To be clear, Buycks was important, but he wasn’t the only thing. First off, the Pistons started to hit three-pointers which helped. Also, their run started when all three of Gary Harris, Nikola Jokic, and Jamal Murray were on the bench. The Nuggets have really struggled to score in those situations this year which at least gave the illusion that the Piston defense suddenly improved, while the Pistons hit shots on the other end.

Just as important as Buycks was that when Andre Drummond returned to the game he put it into his extra gear and went into destroyer mode.

First watch these plays:

Then watch this while remembering that.

That is Andre Drummond at his best. Want to know who started, rather suddenly, not having fun when Drummond came back in? Nikola Jokic. Drummond was in full battering ram mode on both ends of the court and that made a real difference in a lot of ways.

Why doesn’t he play with that effort all the time?

Go back up to that off-ball screen he set. That was in the middle of the second quarter with the game falling out of reach. He plays hard pretty much all the time, but he has an extra gear for big moments. If he played like that all the time he would die, guys have limited amounts of energy.

Ok so how about the little things then.

The Pistons have tried to get Griffin going to the hoop with the ball while having Drummond going to the hoop off the ball more often lately. While there has been an increase in pick and roll play from Griffin and Drummond, they are finding ways to set it up without actually running a pick and roll which makes it harder for opponents to just duck way under screens or just switch it to neutralize Drummond’s rolls, check these out.

In the second play, Drummond is already camped out in the paint by the time Griffin makes his move but the idea remains the same.

In order for Griffin and Drummond to be really effective in the pick and roll together, you have to run it so close to the hoop that it gets awkward very quickly, they can do it, but it isn’t great. They are experimenting with ways to get Drummond as a lob threat without giving teams an easy solution to stop it. It will be interesting to see how they develop these and how defenses react to it as it becomes more visible on film.

There are a lot of things that the offense is doing that are questionable long-term, the one thing they have found which is definitely a keeper is the Griffin-Bullock two-man game.

Regardless of who is coaching next year, get ready to see a lot of plays like that. It has proven to be a great combination.

The Pistons have also continued to find great ways to take advantage of Bullock’s considerable skills as a shooter and passer while limiting the impact of his slightly sloppy ball-skills. First off is that they are still running this set which is a fairly basic but still very nice one.

Starts out as a basic play where a shooter sets a screen and then pops out, but when you do it with a pair of bigs who are great passers this is a super difficult look to cover.

You have to respect Drummond and Griffin’s passing skills to the point where you know that the initial screens and cuts are not just for show. If either Bullock or Ennis gets loose on the initial action the Pistons are probably going to actually get a layup following a slick pass from a big. Toss in a big (and slightly illegal) Drummond screen at the end for the popping Bullock and you have a winner of a set.

This is also the sort of thing people are talking about when they mention fun stuff you can do with big men who can pass. If the defense doesn’t respect those initial cuts then this play is much less effective.

Then look at this set which I think is new where they essentially run horns but out of a dribble hand-off. (For anyone who doesn’t know, a horns set is pretty much any set where you have two big men screen, one rolls, and the other pops. There are tons of variations, but the essential thing is having one big pop while the other rolls.)

This doesn’t look like much, but it is pretty clever. Not long ago the Pistons tried to put the ball in Bullock’s hands a lot more, and they got mixed results because Bullock doesn’t have a tight enough handle to really be trusted to dribble in traffic.

By running horns like this, they essentially get rid of that downside. In fact, they run the whole set with exactly one dribble by Andre Drummond. This way they can run a horns set with the ball in the hands of the best combination of shooting and passing (until Jackson comes back at least) without having to worry about the lack of ball-handling. And there is enough space there that even Bullock could put it on the floor and go to the hoop if he wanted.

Any fun things?

This was not a strong game for Drummond on defense, but he did show off something he has really improved at this year. Recognizing that a player is no longer looking to pass and then coming out of nowhere for a big block.

Dwight Buycks is also a bad dude.

Lastly, shout out to Eric Moreland’s passing ability. His slight uptick in willingness to try and score has been very nice, but his passing is probably still his best offensive skill. There are not a lot of third centers who can make this play as well as Moreland does.

That’s just a fine play, even if Stanley missed.

So what’s the final verdict?

Too bad they couldn’t have managed to come back all the way. It would’ve been the sort of thing that could keep alive the already mostly irrational hope that the Pistons could still save their season, but this was still progress.

The biggest positive is Reggie Bullock and how he is being deployed. Stan Van Gundy is regularly (and not unfairly) criticized for not being quick enough to adjust to things that should change, but Bullock is quickly becoming a nice feather in the coaching staff’s cap.

After getting frustrated by the fact that Bullock was vanishing from games in a purely off-ball role they put the ball in his hands a bunch. Upon realizing that they were getting diminishing returns the more they asked him to dribble, they’ve begun to get clever in order to put the ball in his hands without him needing to dribble.