Detroit Pistons: 5 disturbing trends that need fixed in preseason

The Pistons have to avoid letting up big runs

The Detroit Pistons had the bad habit of falling into defensive lapses and allowing the other team to go on runs. To their credit, the Pistons battled last season, but it doesn’t make much difference when you allow yourself to get down big.

The same exact thing happened in the first preseason game, as the Suns were able to use big runs in the first and third quarters to bury Detroit. The Pistons played well otherwise and the game would have been closer had it not been for these big defensive lapses.

They aren’t good enough yet to come back from 15-20 down every game, so Monty Williams will have to use his timeouts and bench wisely to avoid letting the other team to have these big offensive spurts.

Detroit has to avoid the halfcourt lulls

The same happens to the Detroit Pistons in the halfcourt offense at times. They go into these lulls where the ball isn’t moving and they just aren’t getting good looks.

Bad shot selection leads to fast breaks, leads to big scoring runs for the other team, so these two issues are connected.

The Pistons would like to play fast and avoid this altogether, as they are a much better offense if the defense doesn’t have time to set, so the best way to avoid these halfcourt lulls is to get stops.

But they also have to get better at moving the ball (there was some improvement in that area in the first preseason game), not backing down in the post or relying too much on one guy to make a play.

Monty Williams’ offense stresses these points, but we still saw the Pistons struggle in the half court in the first preseason game.