What would a Brooklyn Nets vs. Detroit Pistons playoff look like?

Detroit Pistons vs. Brooklyn Nets bench

The Nets pretty much had their bench wiped out by the James Harden trade and the knee injury to Spencer Dinwiddie. Former Piston Bruce Brown serves as one of their top reserves as well as former G-Leaguer (and 76ers first round pick) Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot.

The Pistons, on the other hand, will have a stronger bench than they had at the beginning of the year, as the rookies will now have had a full season under their belt.

Saddiq Bey should make the All-Rookie team and center Isaiah Stewart should do a lot of damage as the Nets have little size. Wayne Ellington is a veteran shooter used to playoff pressure, and Svi Mykhailiuk can hit 3s from anywhere when he is in the zone.

Sekou Doumbouya should also contribute, as his cutting to the basket should be effective against a Nets team not great at team defense.

Advantage: Pistons

Coach Casey can go 10-11 deep if he so chooses. Many times the second unit has had to bail out the starters who do not usually get off to fast starts.

If Brooklyn’s Big 3 get tired or in foul trouble, Detroit’s bench could really put a hurt on their reserves, and make it much harder on the Nets stars to pull it out.

Coaching

Dwane Casey vs. Steve Nash

Coach Dwane Casey has a lot of experience coaching in the playoffs. Unfortunately, his teams in Toronto always seem to run into LeBron James, which did not go well. He has a career record of 21-34 in NBA playoff games but, taking away the series against LeBron, he is 19-22, which is a little better.

He did get the Raptors into the Eastern Conference finals in 2016, losing to James and Kyrie Irving’s Cavaliers team in a six-game series.

Steve Nash has never coached until this year. He was in plenty of playoffs as a player, but never reached the finals. His best known assistant, Mike D’Antoni, is much like Casey, a lot of success but never reached the finals either.

Advantage: Pistons

Yes, the reason Casey is in Detroit is because his Toronto teams came up short in the playoffs and got fired because of it. But, he has coached in a lot of playoff games, and this Pistons team will not have the pressure to win like his old Raptors teams.

Nash is a big question mark because he has not coached before. The soap opera that the Durant-Harden-Irving trio might create, plus the wiping out of the Nets bench, will certainly present a challenge.

Series prediction:

Each team will come in with different expectations.

Anything less than an NBA championship, and the Nets season is a complete failure. The Pistons have not won a playoff game in 12 years, they would love to break that streak with a rebuilding team.

With a roaring crowd at Little Caesars Arena behind them, Detroit will indeed break the streak and win one of their home games. They go on to lose the series to Brooklyn, 4-1, but all the games will be close, the Pistons do not get blown out.

The Nets move on and the Pistons young players gain a lot of experience having gone though the series. Win-win.