Detroit Pistons replay center: Explaining Detroit’s defensive woes

Miscommunication and awareness

Miscommunication has been a problem in the half-court as much as it’s been in transition. However, in the half-court, problems in awareness by some Pistons players are also pretty evident.

Wood and Rose have been the main culprits of this. Rose comes to switch on Harris, who Wood is already guarding, probably so that Wood can help on Simmons down low. Well, it takes them too long to get on the same page and the Sixers take advantage of the confusion.

Plays like this frustrate coaches like no others and Wood makes these kinds of mistakes all the time. On an inbounds play, he turns his back on the ball, a big no-no, and gives Markkanen a lot of space to get his shot off.

On the next play, Wood wants to switch while Rose doesn’t. Mike Scott, who was hot from three that night, quickly hands it off and spots up before Wood can get there.

The same thing happens below, off the ball, on the double baseline cut. Wood wants Brown to switch and take Norman Powell while Brown wants to stay with his man. Wood was probably right on this one and Brown should have switched.

It’s much easier to switch off-ball actions like these and you just spare yourselves of the confusion if you just switch all of them. Unless it’s a particularly difficult matchup and you want to avoid the miss-match.

But if this principle is going to work Wood has to be, well, not late all the time on his rotations. He just seems lost on the weak side way too often and it causes confusion to his teammates.

This is where Griffin is going to make a difference on defense. While he doesn’t try much, he is a great communicator and he gets others to cover up for his mistakes by talking to them. On to the next clip.

Since Morris is tagging Ibaka, Frazier should take away the corner pass. Then Morris has to X-out and cover the wing, Kyle Lowry if the ball gets there. Frazier blows this coverage and both defenders run towards Lowry when Fred VanVleet fakes the pass.

OG Anunoby cuts behind Morris and he switches on Marc Gasol. Drummond sees the whole thing and should realize that he has to pick up Anunonby on the cut. He completely ignores him and plays up on the already guarded Gasol.

That makes no sense and I won’t try to make sense out of it. I should point out though Drummond’s tendency to stay in the paint when he clearly has to stay on a shooter. That’s common for almost every big man but it’s a major problem in the modern NBA and I have to mention it.

Drummond is the closest defender on 3.7 3-point attempts, which is second on the team, and opponents are shooting 48.5 percent on those. He has to do a much better job of fighting his habits.

Rose has been excellent so far for the Pistons, on offense. Defense is a different story, a horror story if you will. This is not how you double team the post.

And that is not how you get back into the play either. You have to bother people on double teams, block their way, go for the steal, not run by them, waving goodbye. That’s just poor technique. And the disturbance this caused clearly left John Collins open under the basket. How do you not pick him up?

On this Spain pick-and-roll, Lowry sets a screen on Snell. There’s no other option but to switch that and Rose inexplicably opens up the lane for VavVleet before Snell can get in front of him.

At least, Rose makes up for his defensive shortcomings on offense.

Galloway does the same on the play below while Wood comically dies on a screen by Wayne Ellington, of all people.

Again, the hope is that communication will get better as the season progresses. But there are also some matchup problems that won’t go away. The Pistons are pretty short on the wing compared to the rest of the league.

Snell is their biggest wing and at 6-foot-7 he often has problems guarding bigger players. Kennard, Galloway and Brown won’t solve the problem either.

Parker, T.J. Warren, Tobias Harris, Otto Porter and Marcus Morris have all caused significant matchup problems as they could just bully people into the paint and shoot over them. There’s a clear trend here.

Parker just got his way against the Pistons and got to the basket with ease. You can’t just allow people to go the opposite side of the screen that easily.

Taking away middle penetration is priority number one and Snell does a poor job of that on that play. He hasn’t been impressive on defense, to say the least.

Most starting wings have a significant length advantage over him but more importantly, they’re significantly stronger. He can ride them towards the baseline but he’s not strong enough to bother them much. And remember, he’s the best the Pistons have.

You know you’re short on wings when you see Galloway matching up with Harris. That was a pretty confusing decision by Casey but the options are limited. There’s no way Galloway can do anything to keep Harris from scoring on this play.

Backup center is another huge hole of the Pistons roster. When Drummond goes to the bench, defensive rebounding becomes a difficult challenge. There’s been a 12.9% drop off when Drummond sits which is mirrored by Maker’s numbers.

Maker has a defending rebound percentage of 13.2% which is just horrible and makes him unplayable at backup center. Let’s hope Wood gets a chance there but I’m not expecting him to be a savior either.

Maker, while tall, has a worse standing reach than Wood and his small hands don’t help him at all on the glass. Plus, he overreacts to everything, leaving his man open far too often.

The Pistons may have to address this problem via trade because I honestly don’t see this issue fixed internally. Flipping the expiring contracts for either a backup center, a big wing or both should be a major priority for the front office.

Overall, the defense should get better but there are still glaring holes that the team has to address via trade or in the “free agent/buy out” market.