Last game, the Detroit Pistons defeated the Los Angeles Lakers at home to return to the path of victory and, increasingly, sink the Los Angeles team in their fight to reach the Playoffs.
After the game, I began to remember the last time a Los Angeles team visited the Detroit Pistons.
February 2, 2019.
That’s the date the Detroit Pistons lost their last game at home: Little Caesars Arena.
It was a difficult night that came to my mind bitterly… the Los Angeles Clippers came back from 25 points down to defeat the Pistons. But, they might have learned a significant lesson from that defeat.
Since then, the Pistons have nine consecutive games winning at home; including victories against teams like the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers and Toronto Raptors; teams with high aspirations in the Playoffs.
In fact, it is at home where Detroit has been more successful than on the road.
With 14 games left in the season, the Pistons have a 22-13 record at home; giving them a 62.8% winning percentage, while as visitors they only have won 13 games and fallen 20 times giving them a 39.3% winning percentage.
The problem now is that, of the remaining 14 games, only 6 are at home (including today’s game against the Toronto Raptors); while the remaining 8 are on the road and against high-powered teams like the Portland Trailblazers, Golden State Warriors, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder.
In order keep thinking about the Playoffs and the sixth seed, the Detroit Pistons must achieve three things in this last stretch:
First, defeat the teams that are easier to beat (on the paper). Second, maintaining the good pace at home and third, manage to get the most victories possible on the road.
For now and although it sounds cliche, Detroit should only focus on the Raptors and take the “Playoff Push” one game at a time.
LCA has become the invincible refuge of the Detroit Pistons; now it’s our turn as fans, to make it vibrate and make the visiting teams feel respect when coming to Detroit and listen to our war cry:
Deeetroit Bas-ket-baaaall!!!