The Detroit Pistons’ sliver of road momentum disappeared last night as they were handily eviscerated by the Portland Trail Blazers.
After some positive signs emerged in Minnesota, the Pistons were right back to playing no defense, allowing the Trail Blazers to score 135 points on 57 percent shooting overall. It was another game where the opposition might have shot a similar percentage if they were alone in the gym
The 2022-23 Pistons currently have the worst defense in team history and it’s not even close at this point. Even in this golden era of offense, the Pistons defense is just flat-out terrible, and something is going to have to change in terms of roster/scheme if this mess is going to be fixed.
I definitely don’t put this all on Dwane Casey, but without a major turnaround on defense, it’s time for a new voice in the huddle.
Aside from the overall defense, there were some issues on display last night which really represent where this team is at right now and where they need to improve.
Detroit Pistons: Defense on the wing
Was there any?
Former Piston Jerami Grant scored 36 points basically unopposed by the wing “defenders” Detroit threw at him. But it wasn’t just Grant, the Trail Blazers’ starting perimeter players shot a combined 61 percent from the floor last night.
That included a combined 50 percent from 3-point range, so like I said, not much different than if the Pistons hadn’t come out of the locker room.
Individual defensive rating is an imperfect measure, but the two Pistons’ starting forwards last night, Saddiq Bey and Bojan Bogdanovic, have 119.4 and 121.5 defensive ratings this season, respectively.
To put in perspective how bad that is, the team has a 118.5 defensive rating overall, which is second worst in the league and both their wing players are worse than that.
It’s pretty clear what the number one priority of the offseason has to be, and that is to get some players who are lockdown defenders on the wing.
The Detroit Pistons can’t shoot
The Detroit Pistons shot an awful 41.5 percent from the field last night, a full 16 percentage points lower than their opponent. You won’t win games with that kind of disparity unless you are hitting a ton of 3-point shots, which they weren’t.
The Pistons were just 6-of-18 from 3-point range last night while the Trail Blazers were 14-of-31, making almost as many as Detroit attempted. But it’s not the 3-point shooting that has been hurting the Pistons, as they are actually middle of the pack in 3-point percentage and makes per game. It’s everywhere else on the floor that is killing them.
The Pistons’ 44.9 percent team shooting is 28th in the NBA and their effective field goal percentage (which his buoyed by the hot shooting of Bogdanovic and Burks) is just 51.5 percent, 27th in the NBA.
The Pistons are dead last in 2-point percentage, hitting just 50.7 percent of their 2-point attempts while the best teams are closer to 60 percent.
Some of this is due to the absence of Cade Cunningham, as a lot of guys are playing outside of their comfort zones right now and are being asked to do more than they would do normally, but it’s clear that the Pistons need some shot makers, as they are once again the league’s worst shooting team even after adding Bogdanovic and Burks.
The Detroit Pistons can’t or won’t pass
This is an issue I’ve been harping on about lately, but it’s getting tiresome watching a team with no great individual scorers that refuses to pass the ball.
It’s just selfish basketball, and we saw it again last night, as the Pistons racked up a pathetic 16 assists to 21 turnovers. Detroit didn’t have a single player log more than three assists, but had three guys turn it over at least three times, and there entire bench unit had at least one turnover each.
Part of the problem with the lack of assists goes back to their inability to hit shots, but it’s not just assists where they are lacking. This team is near the bottom of the NBA in just about every passing stat there is, almost to the point where Dwane Casey might have to install the “Hoosier” offense that requires four passes before a player is allowed to shoot.
Again, some of this goes back to losing Cunningham for the season (and Killian Hayes being out last night), as he is the one that gets the offense going, creates open shots and more passing opportunities for his teammates.
But a lot of this is just guys holding the ball too long, taking forever to make their move and dribbling too much when they should be passing the ball.
With Cade out everyone is in an unfamiliar role, but instead of using that as motivation to gel as a team and pass the ball more, this team has retired to their separate rooms, choosing inefficient shots over ball movement on nearly every possession in the half court.
I’ve been seeing a lot of discouragement among fans and you can’t really blame them. Losses are one thing but this is just ugly basketball that is really joyless to watch.