Blake Griffin firing on all cylinders for the Detroit Pistons

The Detroit Pistons have won their first two games of the season largely due to the performance of Blake Griffin. He’s carrying his team right now.

The Detroit Pistons are off to a 2-0 start in their 2018 campaign. Both games have been decided by less than five points. However, a win is a win. Head coach Dwane Casey and the Pistons will look at it that way as well.

Their next game is at home against the Philadelphia 76ers.

The star of the show to this point for the Pistons has been Blake Griffin and it’s not even close. He’s played much better than I had anticipated early on this season.

There was a graphic that Fox Sports Detroit displayed during the second quarter of their game against the Chicago Bulls.

Griffin is one of four Piston players in recent history to score at least 25 points, have five rebounds and five assists on opening night.

The three others on that list were Chauncey Billups, Jerry Stackhouse, and Grant Hill. Talk about fantastic company to be in.

Griffin scored 26 points, pulled in eight rebounds and had six assists. He scored 33 points on Saturday night at the United Center against the Bulls.

Griffin also pulled down 12 rebounds and had five assists.

His plus/minus against Brooklyn was +8. He had a team-high +17 against the Bulls.

With those two impressive performances, he’s averaging 29 points and ten rebounds a game. Those are MVP-caliber numbers if they stay that consistent throughout the season.

I don’t think they will stay that high because of how many other scoring options the Pistons have. Andre Drummond still anchors the middle of the team’s defense so I think Griffin’s rebound totals will begin to balance out.

Griffin just looks like a different player compared to when he was first traded to Detroit. I think part of that is due to his health. He looks like he’s playing light and loose.

What has really impressed me to this point with Griffin is the many different ways he is scoring.

He’s been unstoppable with his back to the basket. On the other hand, his counterpart in the first two games have been Jared Dudley and Bobby Portis.

You still can’t take away the other things he’s been able to do. Through two games, Griffin is shooting 75 percent from three-point range. It’s an area of his game that I think he needed to work on in order to have a productive and healthy back end to his career.

So far so good this season. Griffin’s ability to take the ball off the dribble and go to the basket has been terrific as well.

The pessimist in me wishes that the Pistons would be more dynamic at times offensively rather than watching Griffin carry the load.

It’s an area of this team that hasn’t been the greatest regarding efficiency through their first two games. However, I’m going to just sit back and enjoy what Griffin is doing right now.

Blake Griffin is playing at an MVP-caliber level right now for the Detroit Pistons.