The Detroit Pistons bricked their way to another blowout loss last night vs. the Knicks, chucking up 33 from beyond the arc and only making eight of them for a measly 24.2 percent.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Pistons cannot shoot.
I’m to the point where I am only half joking when I say the Detroit Pistons should petition the league to ban the 3-pointer, which might give them a fighting chance in an NBA basketball game.
The Pistons are dead last in the NBA in 3-point shooting, hitting just 30.7 percent of their long-range shots. They’ve been even worse lately, making just 25.7 percent over their last three games.
Last night nearly everyone got in on the action, as eight different Pistons made zero or one 3-point shots, and if you remove emergency starter Cory Joseph‘s 3-of-3 night, the Pistons shot 16 percent as a team, or roughly what most NBA players would hit while blindfolded.
So what can the Detroit Pistons do to get out of this shooting slump?
The Detroit Pistons’ shooting is brutal
I would say that the answer is to simply shoot fewer 3’s, as the Pistons chuck the 16th-most in the NBA, far too many for a team that can’t make them.
But they stink at 2-point shots as well and are last in the NBA, hitting just 48.7 percent overall. However, that has bumped up to 53.4 over the last three games, which would be top-10 in the NBA, so maybe the solution is to quit shooting so many 3-pointers and focus on getting to the rim.
The Pistons are 4th in free throw attempts per game and 6th in made free throws, so the answer might be to try to get to the line as much as possible, where at least they can shoot uncontested shots.
One thing is for sure, shooting from long range is not working, as you would have to go all the way back to 2012 to find a team as bad at shooting 3-pointers as the Detroit Pistons are this season.
The Pistons are currently being led in 3-point percentage by rookie Luka Garza at 35 percent, which is about league average. They have SIX players shooting less than 30 percent right now, which is actually pretty impressive in a bad way.
Maybe Dwane Casey should write a heartfelt letter to the league telling them how unfair these 3-pointers are! It is a LONG shot after all. Maybe Detroit can lower their rims at home to gain an advantage, replace the basketballs with medicine balls so the other team shoots like Detroit too.
I don’t know, I am out of ideas here. Barring a rule change the Pistons are going to have to find some shooters if they want to progress as a team because right now they don’t have a single guy who can be trusted from beyond the arc.