3 takeaways from the Detroit Pistons 95-92 loss to New York Knicks

The Detroit Pistons continue their recent slide having now lost eight of their last eleven games after their 95-92 loss to New York.

It is an exceptionally sad time to be a fan of either the Detroit Pistons or the New York Knicks, although not out of the ordinary for either franchise.

The Pistons are playing their second game since trading their franchise center Andre Drummond to the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Knicks are playing their second game after firing their team President Steve Mills.

Are there better options than watching two of the five worst teams in the NBA on a Saturday night? Sure. But, tonight we got to witness the Thon Maker block party, which (somewhat) made up for the pain I suffered from watching these two teams play basketball.

The Pistons had a lead for most of the game, but the Knicks won the game in the end in large part thanks to my first takeaway of the night.

Even with Drummond for most of the season, the Pistons are one of the worst rebounding teams in terms of defensive rebound percentage in the NBA (26th, 71.6 percent). However, the Pistons post Drummond have gotten much worse and tonight it showed.

The Pistons gave up 16 offensive rebounds which led to 17 second chance points for the Knicks compared to the Pistons two second chance points on just three offensive rebounds.

Christian Wood had a good game in terms of production on the stat sheet with 10 rebounds along with 17 points, but newcomer John Henson was second on the team tonight in rebounds with just four. Overall, the Pistons were even lower than usual in terms of defensive rebound percentage at just 58.3 percent.

Rebounding was Drummond’s specialty skill, the one that separates himself from a league of big men moving further away from the basket. Now that this team doesn’t have it, it can’t easily put teams like the Knicks away even if they’re playing better than them because of their inability to end the possession.

How important the volume of Drummond’s rebounding was and how much it impacted winning was a main source of contention for Pistons fans and observers.

Ultimately, no one was surprised he ended up being traded but the package the Pistons got for him didn’t necessarily reflect the amount of good traits Drummond has as a player.

His damning trait was that his production didn’t translate to winning consistently, but the Pistons sure could of used a vacuum cleaner like effort on the glass tonight.

This has to be a priority for the team moving forward, to find another NBA caliber center who won’t get bullied inside much like Thon Maker and Sekou Doumbouya were tonight.

Both players are playing significant minutes at the forward and center positions respectively, but physically can’t matchup with players such as Julius Randle or Mitchell Robinson in terms of guarding them consistently and letting up offensive rebounds, Randle and Robinson both had three offensive rebounds tonight.