One quarter every game is killing the Detroit Pistons

The Detroit Pistons are a pretty good 36-minute NBA team. The problem is that games are 48 minutes.

In just about every Pistons’ loss, they have been undone by a quarter where they just couldn’t make a shot. They are putting up historically bad shooting numbers right now and with few exceptions have mostly lost games where they scored fewer than 20 points in one of the four quarters and weren’t able to recover.

It’s not any particular quarter, as the Pistons are bad in all of them overall. Here is Detroit’s ranking in scoring by quarter:

• 1st–29th
• 2nd–23rd
• 3rd–29th
• 4th–14th

The 4th quarter is the only one in which the Pistons aren’t near the bottom, but that is a bit deceiving, as they are often down in the 4th and trying to make a furious comeback against the other team’s subs, which was the case last night vs. the Clippers.

The Pistons have had at least one dud quarter in all of their losses where they inexplicably forgot how to play basketball.

One bad quarter for each Detroit Pistons’ loss

• A 21-point 4th quarter killed them against Philly
• The Pistons put up 19 points in the 4th vs. the Bulls
• An 18-point 1st quarter lost the game vs. the Hawks
• The Pistons had 16 points in both the 3rd and 4th in another loss to Philly
• 16 point 2nd quarter vs. Nets
• 11 point 3rd quarter vs. the Cavaliers
• 12 point 1st quarter against the awful Kings
• The 3rd quarter against he Warriors saw just 19 points
• The Pistons blew the 4th against the Lakers, Heat and Bucks, scoring 17,16, and 19 points, respectively
• Last night they scored just 18 points in the 1st quarter vs. the Clippers

You can probably say this about every bad team, but Detroit has lost a lot of close games in which they’ve played well in three quarters and completely crapped the bed in the other.

This is mostly due to the fact that they are a young team that has a hard time staying focused for an entire game, something they need to improve as the season goes on.

Whether it is effort, shooting or just a lack of talent, the Pistons need to figure out how to eliminate these quarters where they score fewer than 20 points, as you aren’t going to win many NBA games playing three quarters.