The Detroit Pistons were embarrassed at home by a shorthanded Milwaukee Bucks team, and once again their offense is to blame.
The Pistons have the worst offense in the NBA this season, scoring the fewest points per game with the lowest field goal and 3-point percentage in the league.
The Pistons’ are off to a historically cold shooting start as a team, and to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team shoot this poorly to start a season. Even with the excuses of new teammates and young players, it has been ugly and there is no way to sugarcoat it.
I thought the offense would tick up when Cade Cunningham returned, but he is clearly still coming back from his injury and isn’t 100 percent. It was evident last night, as he was rushing everything and looked really frustrated at times.
I don’t think anyone thought this team was a title contender, or even a playoff contender, but it is disappointing to see them take a step back offensively, especially when they were awful last year too.
The good news is that it is still very early and the Detroit Pistons have only played two games with their full roster. The bad news is this offense is so bad that it’s going to take a monumental turnaround for them to even be average.
The question is who is to blame. If you did a lap around Pistons’ Twitter you’d find two camps, those who blame the players and those who blame the offensive strategy of Dwane Casey.
Congratulations! You’re both right.
Detroit Pistons: Why the offense is the players’ fault
In the most recent 117-89 drubbing at the hands of the Bucks, the Pistons shot an amazing 8-of-47 from 3-point range for a whopping 17 percent.
The worst part of this is that most of them were WIDE OPEN.
I can’t remember seeing a team miss that many uncontested shots in my life and just about everyone got a turn.
Cade Cunningham, Saddiq Bey and Frank Jackson were a combined 0-of-18 from 3-point range last night. In fact, every single player on the active roster took at least one 3-point shot except for Isaiah Stewart and Luka Garza and only Jerami Grant, Trey Lyles and Killian Hayes actually made one.
That makes for 10 players who failed to make a single 3-point shot.
Dwane Casey’s motion offense is built around getting and making open 3-point shots and right now only half of that equation is happening. You can blame Casey if you want, but he is not the one shooting all of these bricks.
But that leaves the question, if the Detroit Pistons can’t shoot 3-pointers, then why are they taking so many?
Why the offensive struggles are Dwane Casey’s fault
I don’t think Dwane Casey is fully to blame, as I said, players have to hit shots and the Pistons missed a ton of wide-open ones last night.
But some of the numbers don’t add up here. The Pistons are dead last in 3-point percentage in the NBA, yet take the third most attempts of any team.
Their motion offense is full of dribble handoffs and lateral movement that rarely ever goes downhill, leading to a lot of isolations and three point shots.
The Pistons currently don’t have the one-on-one talent to win with isolation plays, and they can’t shoot, so Casey is not running an offense that is designed for the strengths of his team.
He has two very good passers in Cade Cunningham and Killian Hayes who are known for their work in the pick-and-roll, yet the Pistons rarely ever run these types of plays or work to their strengths.
Instead they run this 3-man weave with dribble handoffs that never allows Cade or Killian to make plays. It is frustrating to watch, as it’s like Casey is running an offense for a team that doesn’t exist.
This team should be trying to get to the rim, getting downhill and trying to pick up fouls, which could be a strength. Instead they are weaving around the perimeter and chucking 3-point shots which they clearly can’t make right now.
While it’s not on Casey to make the open shots, it is on him to make adjustments and this team has failed to score 100 points in 4-of-7 games and has yet to score at least 110 points, which is pretty much average for an NBA offense in the modern game.
Something has to change, and since the Pistons can’t completely revamp their roster, the changes are going to have to be systemic and that starts with Casey.
I don’t fully blame the coach, as the Detroit Pistons are simply not making shots that NBA players should be able to make, but knowing that, he needs to adjust and do it quickly.