Luke Kennard is the “x-factor” in the playoffs for the Detroit Pistons

The Detroit Pistons will take on the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs. Luke Kennard will have to be the Detroit Pistons’ “x-factor.”

The Detroit Pistons are taking on the team with best record in the entire NBA. The Milwaukee Bucks delivered a league leading 60 wins during the regular season. It’s the first time they have won 60 games in a regular season since the 1980-1981 season. And overall their first time getting 50 or more wins since 2000-2001.

As no surprise, the Milwaukee Bucks were able to stomp on the Pistons quite easily during the regular season. They swept the Pistons by an average of 14.7 points per game.

Kennard had another solid season. Although it may have been rocky, he averaged a career high 9.7 points per game, 2.9 rebounds per game, and 1.8 assists per game on 43.8 percent shooting from the field and 39.4 percent from three.

Luke Kennard didn’t receive much action in the first meeting against the Bucks. In 6 minutes he dropped 2 points on 1 for 6 shooting.

In the next meeting he started for the Pistons. But he failed to capitalize in 23 minutes. He scored 3 points on 1 for 7 shooting.

The third meeting saw Kennard get 20 minutes of action and contributed to 8 points on 3 for 10 shooting. That performance was easily better than the first two combined. But for Kennard, he knew that it wasn’t good enough.

It would be the fourth and final meeting where Kennard would flourish and find his rhythm against the Bucks defense. He scored 19 points on 8 for 16 shooting. He was the third leading scorer for the Pistons behind Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond. Overall he helped the Pistons bench outscore the Bucks bench 40 to 34.

In the four games against the Bucks, he averaged 8 points per game on 33 percent shooting. This obviously has to improve for the Pistons to have any chance against the Bucks. But maybe in the last meeting against the Bucks Kennard found a way to break the Bucks defense.

Luke Kennard ineffective versus effective

I mentioned Luke Kennard being almost ineffective in the first three games versus the Bucks. He struggled to build any rhythm and score on the Bucks defense.

The Bucks defense forces the shot clock to wind down for the Pistons; forcing Kennard to shoot a contested three.

He could have dribbled his way into a jump shot as soon as Sterling Brown raced back to the corner to cover Langston Galloway.

Kennard usually finds the shots that he wants. But in this clip Kennard take’s a wild layup when looking for a foul call.

Here you can see Kennard come off not one, but two screens off the dribble handle-off to get himself a wide open jump-shot.

This forced the Bucks defenders to adjust and watch for Kennard dribble hand-offs.

Kennard does a great job fooling his defender Eric Bledsoe; who thought Kennard was going to get a dribble hand-off from Blake Griffin.

Now the Bucks have no clue what Kennard will do when he gets the ball. So the Bucks decide to put a second defender on him. However, Kennard continued to play cool, calm, and collected. He noticed the double-team and instantly passed it out to a wide open Khyri Thomas for three.

The Bucks know Kennard can shoot the basketball. Their game plan against Kennard is to run him off the three-point line. Kennard does a great job of getting to the rim after his defender George Hill was caught reeling.

Now the Bucks have to worry about his dribble penetration. Kennard is going to find Andre Drummond for an open layup with his dribble penetration after faking two Milwaukee defenders with two sweet ball-fakes.

Kennard is going to have to confuse the Bucks defense. And if his last game against the Bucks foreshadows the way he will play in the series, then the Pistons might have a good chance at winning a couple playoff games.