Why the Detroit Pistons’ offense is so ridiculously easy to stop
The Detroit Pistons’ defense has been getting a lot of criticism this season and for good reason, they are 26th in the league in points allowed per game and the team has the highest margin of defeat in the NBA.
But the offense has been even worse, as the Pistons rank just 28th in points per game at 107.7, which would have put them 2nd in the league in 2004, the last time Detroit won a title. But it’s not 2004 any more and teams have to score 112 points per game to even be in the top half of the league.
While Detroit does have some talented individual scorers in Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, Bojan Bogdanovic and Saddiq Bey, their offense is still incredibly easy to stop overall.
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There are plenty of explanations for the Pistons’ offensive struggles, but three really stand out as the reasons the offense hasn’t improved as much as expected.
Detroit Pistons: The bench is atrocious
All five of the Pistons’ starters average at least 12.5 points per game and Cunningham, Bey and Bogdanovic have all improved their shooting efficiency, so the starters aren’t the crux of the problem.
The issue is that after the starting five there is a steep decline, as 18-year-old rookie Jalen Duren is leading the bench with 7.4 points per game. He’s one of two players on the bench shooting at least 40 percent overall from the field. Hamidou Diallo is the other and he is shooting right at 40 percent, which is not good for a guy who does little but dunk.
The bench doesn’t have a single real scoring threat, which is one of the reasons the offense is so easy to stop overall, as you need guys who can occasionally come off the bench and give you a big night. The Detroit Pistons don’t currently have that guy, in fact, they don’t even have a guy who can give you an average night offensively.
Hopefully the return of Alec Burks and Marvin Bagley III will help bridge the huge gap between the starters and bench, because right now Duren (and Livers on some nights) are the only Pistons’ reserves who look like NBA rotation players.
The Detroit bench is averaging 23 points per game, which is half of what the top benches in the league score and down 15 points from last season. Hard to score in the NBA when you only have four real scorers and none coming off the bench.