For the last few weeks, I’ve heard a lot of talk about how the Detroit Pistons are vulnerable to a first-round upset and how a team like the Hornets could present big problems for them. Sure.
Detroit ran away from the Hornets last night, holding them to just 10 points in the 4th quarter, giving a preview of what is going to happen in the first round if Charlotte even gets there, as they will have to win two games to secure a spot.
The Hornets have been red-hot since the All-Star break, which led to a lot of ”they are a nightmare matchup for Detroit!” talk being bandied about by talking heads who are looking for any reason not to believe in the Pistons even though they’ve dominated the Eastern Conference and been in first place since November.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a number one seed treated like an underdog, but I digress.
Charlotte fits the type of team many think Detroit will be susceptible to in the playoffs, a team that can score a ton of points by shooting a making a lot of 3-point shots. Detroit doesn’t take or make many themselves, so a team that launches copious numbers of threes would be a matchup nightmare, right?
Wrong.
What happened to “defense wins championships?”
Every year I hear about how “defense wins championships” but apparently that doesn’t apply to the Pistons, who have had the 2nd best defense in the league all season.
The narrative all year has been about how the Pistons don’t have enough 3-point shooting to beat teams that do, which seems counterintuitive to the whole “defense” cliche.
The Hornets showed exactly why they are actually the perfect opponent for Detroit. They take a ton of threes, which is annoying, as it does seem hard to get a lead on them that they can’t instantly erase.
But as soon as those threes stop falling, they have nothing else, and eventually, they usually do, as legs start to get tired, and those LaMelo step backs that were working in the first half suddenly start hitting the front of the rim.
Meanwhile, the Pistons just keep plugging away in the paint, dominating there on both ends and getting runouts off those missed long balls.
The Hornets won the 3-point battle last night, but lost everything else, so kudos to them for shooting 20 more 3-point shots than the Pistons and playing right into their hands.
The Pistons struggle against teams that play their style
Detroit has had more trouble with teams that can hang with them in the paint, as Detroit does rely on that disparity to make up for their lack of 3-point shooting.
Teams that have good rim protectors are the ones that bother the Pistons, not teams that rely 100 percent on fast break points and 3-point shots like the Hornets.
Defense and dunks are far more reliable in the playoffs than 3-point shooting, so despite what many people think, Detroit actually matches up better with the teams that jack them up from 3-point range.