The Detroit Pistons remained winless on the road and dropped their 7th straight overall last night to the red-hot Sacramento Kings, who have won six in a row.
At this point, saying the Detroit Pistons are shorthanded is an understatement, as they are missing Cade Cunningham, Isaiah Stewart and Saddiq Bey, which gave them little chance on the road.
Detroit showed up and played hard, which is a good sign, but it doesn’t much matter when you are missing three key players from a young roster and needs every ounce of talent it has to really compete.
The Pistons shot a scorching 52.8 percent overall in their best offensive game of the season, but the problem was they let up 55.3 percent shooting for the Kings in their worst defensive effort.
There were some positives, but let’s start with some of the problems.
The Detroit Pistons cannot defend
You probably shouldn’t lose a game in which you shoot over 50 percent from the floor and the 3-point line and score 129 points, but the Detroit Pistons managed it last night.
Their terrible defense is getting into historic areas that we haven’t seen since the “Process” Sixers.
After last night’s loss, the Pistons have dropped to 29th in points per game allowed, 29th in scoring margin, 29th in defensive efficiency, 27th in opponent shooting percentage and 25th in defensive rebounding, so they aren’t even closing out possessions on an opponent’s rare miss.
Without Cunningham and Stewart in there, Detroit doesn’t have a great individual defender. I do think both Jalen Duren and Jaden Ivey will get there, but when your two best defenders are rookies, that’s a problem.
It’s been clear what the Pistons’ biggest roster weakness is since day one, so the first order of business this offseason is to shore up the wing defense and rebounding. Until that happens, it won’t matter how hot the offense is.
Picking up early fouls
Detroit hasn’t helped themselves in the last few games when it comes to fouls and it happened once again last night. Both Killian Hayes and Jaden Ivey picked up early ones, and Marvin Bagley III once again couldn’t stay on the floor because of fouls (and because he couldn’t get a rebound).
The Kings made 11 more free throws than the Pistons last night, which was the deciding factor in an otherwise close game. The Detroit Pistons are 29th in the league in fouls per game and 30th in fouls per possession. They are dead last in fouls per defensive play, fouling 20 percent of the time, a number that has gone up to nearly 24 percent in the last three games.
This is not only costing them in points, but forcing coach Casey to sit guys early which messes up the rotations. Yes, the Pistons are a young team still learning how to defend, but they give up a ton of stupid fouls that often don’t even affect the play. They have to knock off the silly ones 45 feet from the hoop, as well as the lazy reach-ins, as these fouls are costing them games.
The bench showing some life
The Pistons’ bench has been one of the worst in the league all season, but they have shown life since the return of Alec Burks. Burks has scored at least 15 points in 4-of-5 games and once again led the bench last night, though he didn’t shoot the ball particularly well.
The Detroit Pistons outscored the Kings’ bench 55 to 25 last night and got contributions from just about everyone including Kevin Knox, Jalen Duren and Cory Joseph, with four bench players in double figures for the first time this season.
If the Pistons could ever get healthy, this bench could actually be decent, but it’s hard to evaluate these players and this roster configuration when they literally haven’t played with their full complement of players all season.
At this point, all we can do is cheer for development, competitive games and progress, and there was some last night, but the defense has to improve if the Pistons are actually going to win some of these games instead of just getting participation trophies.