The night after a crushing loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, the Detroit Pistons will head to Golden 1 Center to meet De’Aaron Fox and Sacramento Kings.
The Detroit Pistons are in a bad place right now and walking into Golden 1 Center to face the Sacramento Kings in the second of a back-to-back is the last news any Pistons’ fan is looking for. Detroit just under performed in a game against a LeBron James-less Lakers’ team in a game where Kyle Kuzma dropped 41 points and Blake Griffin had zero rebounds for the first time in his career.
Normally, games like those can be inspiring. They can sometimes serve as a building block. Unfortunately for the Detroit Pistons, this isn’t the first contest of the season where they just could not put the win on the table. The Motown basketball team travels to Cali as they look to get Griffin back on the boards and finish figuring out who will stick around during the much needed rebuild.
January has not been so kind to the Sacramento Kings either. In their five games of the new year, the Kings are 1-4 – their record is 1-3 at home. Yet, the Kings have De’Aaron Fox in the middle of a breakout sophomore year and will undoubtedly challenge the Detroit Pistons at the point guard position. Any team that has a point with speed and athleticism give the Pistons’ cause for pause, defensively.
Thursday night against Sacramento will be no different. On the season, Fox has been shooting 37.9 percent from beyond the three-point line, but in the Kings’ most recent struggles of January, has only shot 28.6 percent from the perimeter. He needn’t worry about missing a few long-range jumpers when the Sacramento Kings are collectively shooting 39.0 percent in three-point field goals, currently ranked second in the league statistic.
Fox has developed into one of Sacramento’s closers and will give Pistons trouble primarily in transition and his drives to the bucket.
Both teams have a penchant for letting games slip away. Whether it is a 31-13 Detroit Pistons’ lead or a Kings’ 21-point lead over the Phoenix Suns, both resulted in a loss for the competing teams. In the Detroit Pistons’ case, not only does the game appear to get away from them, but the plays being called direct the team away from what made them so successful to start off.
Their lack of defense in recent games is also concerning when entering the match-up against the Kings. Sacramento is top-ten in the league in field-goal percentage (47.0 percent) with players like Iman Shumpert and Bogdan Bogdanovic ready to score from multiple places on the floor.
Thankfully for the Pistons, Shumpert may not even see the floor as he is listed a questionable for Thursday night’s match-up. Bogdanovic has been pushed into the starting rotation in Shumpert’s absence which has had an adverse affect on Sacramento’s ability to get consistent production off of the bench.
Andre Drummond will have a field day on the boards, but how much of an impact he can be to the Detroit Pistons is still in question. He is a rebounding talent that cannot be denied, but his presence does not move the needle.
Reggie Jackson will have a lot on his hands, when it comes to containing Fox offensively. Griffin will likely have a better outing than the 16 points he scored Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Lakers without Kuzma smothering him on defense.
The Sacramento Kings allow over 47 percent field goal-shooting, so the door will be open for the Detroit Pistons. If they walk through, we will know soon enough.