Detroit Pistons: The bad, ugly and really ugly in back-to-back losses

The Detroit Pistons dropped back-to-back games on the road against the Knicks and Pacers and there wasn’t a whole lot to get excited about.

The loss to the Knicks was just a complete blowout and in last night’s defeat by the Pacers, the Pistons fell apart in the second half after a promising start.

There were some positives from last night’s loss, as Detroit finally saw the ball go into the hoop a few times from long range and Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey played well.

But it wasn’t enough to slow down Indiana, who scored 72 points in the second half last night behind 27 points from rookie Bennedict Mathurin.

The first 10 games of the Pistons schedule are brutal (they aren’t even to the tough part yet) so it’s very possible they are going to start the season in a big hole if they can’t figure out some of their issues.

The last two losses were been bad, ugly and really ugly at times as the young Detroit Pistons try to figure some things out and get healthy.

Detroit Pistons: The bad from back-to-back losses

Two-point percentage

Coming into the season, it was the Pistons’ 3-point shooting that had most people concerned, but in the last two losses it’s been the 2-point shots that have been the problem.

In the blowout loss to the Knicks, Detroit shot just 41 percent from 2-point range and in last night’s debacle, the Pistons hit a horrendous 35 percent from inside the arc.

To put that into perspective, Detroit was 29th in 2-point percentage last season overall, hitting 49.8 percent as a team, so to say 35 percent is bad is an understatement.

The Pacers did block 15 shots last night and that was without Myles Turner playing, but Detroit also just missed a ton of bunnies at the rim. The biggest culprit (as usual) was Isaiah Stewart, who simply must get better at catching the ball cleanly and finishing dump offs around the rim. Cade and Ivey have consistently gotten him the ball in places where most centers score and Stewart consistently fumbles the passes or just misses the point blank shots.

Stewart did have 11 points last night, but only shot 2-of-10 overall and hit 6-of-10 from the line. Saddiq Bey and Bojan Bogdanovic were similarly broke and the Detroit Pistons left at lot of points on the floor with missed shots at the rim.

Detroit actually hit 42 percent of their 3-point shots against Indiana, but it didn’t much matter, as they were either swatted or just flat-out missed just about everything else.