3 takeaways from Reggie Jackson’s triumphant return to Detroit Pistons lineup

2. Jackson and Rose should share the floor

The Pistons are the eighth-worst team in pace in the NBA. Jackson can help boost the pace with his bursts of speed. He likes to grab rebounds or take an outlet and run to beat defenders back in transition, as evident Wednesday night.

Playing Jackson and Rose alongside each other will give the Pistons a quicker backcourt. They could equally push the pace and give Pistons bigs a pair of outlet options. Bumping up the pace would give Detroit more possessions for their highly-efficient offense.

In the small, 2.7-minute sample, the Pistons scored eight points on 2-of-4 shooting and were a plus-6. That ranks as the fifth-best two-man pairing on the Pistons, though Jackson’s small sample size hinders a great look since he is included in the top 6 two-man lineups having only played three games this season.

Detroit is 18th in pick-and-roll possessions with 20.7 per game from the ball-handler. Jackson’s bread and butter has been the pick-and-roll game. As the fourth-best shooting team on 3-pointers, the Pistons can make better usage of their 37.3% 3-point percentage by spacing the floor and allowing Jackson or Rose to take the ball-handling duties.

It helps to have the emergence of forward shooters such as Sekou Doumbouya, Christian Wood and Markieff Morris improving his 3-point shot. In a small sample size, Rose is converting 43.8% of his catch-and-shoot attempts from 3-point range. Last season with double the frequency it was still a consistent 35% in Minnesota.

With Kennard out for the foreseeable future, playing Jackson and Rose together is almost a necessity to give Brown a breather from time to time. But given the success in a small sample size, it should give the Pistons a great opportunity to match up with smaller teams.