The Detroit Pistons hope to get in the preseason win column tonight at home against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
You can’t get too excited about preseason either way, but Detroit has not looked great so far, so it would be nice for them to have some positives heading into the regular season, and that starts against a young Thunder team that could be missing several key players including Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey, as well as rookie Chet Holmgren, who is out for the season.
The Thunder are beat up at the moment and could be missing 6-7 guys, so this is a game the Detroit Pistons need to play better in lest the fans fall into a panic before the season even starts.
It’s not just about winning, the Pistons need to show some things and in general, play a much better game than they have in the first two, as getting a sloppy win against a Thunder team that may have started tanking for Victor Wembanyama already is not good enough.
Detroit needs to inject some positivity into the preseason and here’s how they can do it against the Thunder.
The Detroit Pistons need to play clean
Detroit has committed 42 turnovers in the first two preseason games and shot less than 30 percent from 3-point range as a team.
You aren’t going to win any games like this, so it would be a positive sign if the Pistons can play a relatively mistake-free game, not cough the ball up 20+ times and actually make some shots.
Yes, Detroit is a young team and young teams often struggle with turnovers and shooting, but this is ridiculous. You can’t have your backcourt turning it over 9-10 times per game and expect to win, so even though the Pistons are young, they simply have to start taking better care of the ball to have a chance this season.
Their defense is not good enough to give up easy fast break buckets, so they need to play clean and take care of the ball so they can get their halfcourt defense set.