How the Detroit Pistons can stay afloat until Blake Griffin returns

Guard play

What happened last year in the playoffs when Griffin was missing? Well, Thon Maker couldn’t fill his shoes and the Pistons collapsed.

Okay. What else?

Luke Kennard stepped up and became a legitimate first option on offense.

In Griffin’s absence, Kennard was able to have the ball in his hands and shoot it 15 times per game. The same will happen now. He can replace Bruce Brown in the starting lineup and make up for the 10 percent difference in usage Griffin has over Morris.

The Pistons can run pick-and-roll’s with Kennard and he’ll be able to find 15 footer’s with ease. You don’t want most players to take these kinds of shots but Kennard is such a good shooter that he could hit them with great efficiency.

But most importantly, when those shots go in, Kennard finds the confidence to hit all kinds of shots. He has a unique shot-making ability when he’s in a rhythm. Playing with the starters without Griffin could help him establish himself as that kind of shot maker.

He actually has to do that for the Pistons to have a successful season. Fortunately, Kennard seems ready to take that jump.

The bench struggled a lot last season in general but without Kennard, the second unit just moved the ball around until the shot clock expired in the half-court. It was all kinds of horrible. This year, there’s Derrick Rose and they can pair him with Christian Wood.

Rose is probably the best pick-and-roll ball handler the Pistons have. Last year, he scored 0.95 points per possession and was in the 79th percentile on 7.6 attempts per game. He is just a great dribble penetrator using hang dribbles and hesitation moves to freeze the opposing bigs and then his speed to get by them and finished near the rim.

Last season 32.4 percent of his shot attempts came in the restricted area. For comparison, Russell Westbrook‘s respective percentage was 37.5 percent. And Rose shot a league-average 62.3 percent at the rim while Westbrook shot 63.1 percent.

Pairing Rose with Christian Wood, who so far seems to be a capable 3-point shooter, on pick-and-pops will open up even more space for him to drive.

He doesn’t have a consistent pull up three to draw defenders away from the rim but he’s elite in the mid-range. He shot 46.2 percent in that area last season. That’s elite for a mid-range shooter but still ineffective as a reliable source of offense.

More important than his mid-range jumpers is how much attention he draws when he gets to his spots. Rose is so quick in a straight line that opposing big men have to overstep to block his drives. That will leave open lanes for Drummond and Wood to dive to the rim for easy buckets.

The Dallas Mavericks have four players defending this Rose-Drummond pick-and-roll, leaving two good shooters open on the weak side. Rose doesn’t kick it out here but you can see the shift in the defense he creates. And as long as he can keep defenses honest in the mid-range, he’s a valuable offensive weapon.

Reggie Jackson will also have to step up his game in Griffin’s absence. After the preseason, I’m much more worried about Jackson than I should be. I know it’s just the preseason but he didn’t seem 100 percent.

I hope I’m just reading into the situation and he’ll start the season gunning. If not, maybe Rose starting becomes a necessity. The major reason Jackson is deemed as the starter is that he’s a better fit next to Griffin. Without the Pistons star in the first unit, making the swap temporarily seems like a smart move.

In any case, all three guards must step up and fill Griffin’s shoes. The teams the Pistons face in that timespan, except Philly, aren’t particularly big, so we’ll see a lot of minutes from all three. The Rose-Jackson backcourt will definitely give it a go and we may even see the Pistons closing games with all three of them.

For the same reason, I doubt we’ll see much of Maker. Dwane Casey, as Rod Beard of the Detroit News reported, said he’ll leave the last rotation spot “fluid.” I gather Wood will take Maker’s spot, as he’s better than him at literally everything, Langston Galloway will be the fourth guard and Brown will be the back up small forward.

The rest of the minutes will be situational. Casey could stick with a nine-man rotation or bring either Maker, Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, Khyri Thomas or even Sekou Doumbouya when needed. These decisions will change each game and will depend on matchups. Not bad at all for a team missing its star player.

So, the depth the Pistons added this summer and Kennard’s expected third-year jump are the major reasons why you shouldn’t panic yet. But there’s a sleeper reason. I’ve been talking about it a lot, so you may have guessed it.