Detroit Pistons: Lack of creativity on offense falls on players, coaches

The Detroit Pistons have looked awful on offense in their last two games. That falls on the players and their head coach, Dwane Casey.

The Detroit Pistons laid another egg last night in Milwaukee.

It’s their second straight loss where they were blown out of the gym. They haven’t looked like the team that just went 5-1 on their previous home stand.

When you watch a team play from start to finish every night they have a game, you figure out their tendencies.

You see the good and the bad.

There’s been a recurring theme in all of Detroit’s losses this season: They lack the creativity and ability to manufacture points when necessary.

Blake Griffin has been playing well this season. He’s by far been the best player on this roster in a majority of categories.

The Pistons rely on him a lot. Griffin has a 29.2 usage percentage this season.

The NBA is a star-driven league where teams play through their best players. That’s fine and the Detroit Pistons should use their star forward.

However, this method of play comes back to bite them so many times.

Last night was a prime example of this.

The Pistons shot 36 percent from the field and 23 percent from three-point range. Griffin shot 50 percent from the field and scored a team-high 31 points.

Those numbers look great in a winning effort. They look like the team is using him as a crutch in a losing effort.

Griffin was locked in from the start and was hitting a majority of his shots early on in the game. Everyone else couldn’t hit water if they fell out of a boat.

What do the guys do on the floor around Griffin then do?

Force feed the ball to him. Continue to rely on him to bully his way to the basket and score the majority of their points.

What does a good team like Milwaukee start to do then? Throw multiple guys, double team, and smother Griffin when he’s out on the perimeter.

They begin to do everything humanly possible to stop him from scoring. Why?

Did you notice what everyone else on offense was doing when Griffin was playing hero ball?

People were standing out along the perimeter and not moving at all. Bucks defenders were leaving guys out there to double team Griffin because nobody was able to hit their shots last night.

No movement. No excitement. No creativity.

Who does that fall on? That’s on the players and it’s on Dwane Casey.

I haven’t criticized Casey at all this season. However, criticism is due in this situation. The Detroit Pistons need to be more creative on the offensive end if they’re going to contend in the east.

This team is so content with doing the same things on that end of the floor even when it isn’t working for them.

It’s either Griffin hero ball or guys throwing up prayers from the perimeter. This is not a good three-point shooting team.

Why aren’t we seeing more pick and roll action from Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond? Why aren’t we seeing more attempts to get guys going to the rim?

There needs to be more movement. There needs to be a bigger sense of urgency!

The Detroit Pistons are so quick to cave when players not named Blake Griffin aren’t making shots. Then the opposing team does everything in their power to stop Griffin and it seems like all hope is lost in that particular game.

What happened to this team in their last two games? If you watched their last home stand, they were playing some of their best basketball on that end of floor.

The ball was moving well. Guys were moving well without the ball in their hands. They were pushing the pace. Many guys were contributing to that.

Granted, they’ve played much better teams in their last two games. However, that doesn’t take away from the previous statement.

You can’t drop everything and rely on your best player to do it all when things don’t seem to be working early on in games.

If the Detroit Pistons want to be considered a contender this season, they need to go back to the drawing board offensively and figure out an identity.