Today has a chance to be a great day for the city of Detroit.
The Pistons will take on the Suns at Little Caesar’s Arena before the Lions begin their quest for a Super Bowl against the Commanders at Ford Field.
The city is buzzing, as the Lions are the real deal and the Pistons are trying to follow in their footsteps as a young exciting team on the come up.
The Pistons are currently the 8th seed, just a game out of the 6th and looking to bounce back after a lackluster effort against the Pacers.
This will be Detroit’s last home game before a crucial five-game road trip that will put them against five strong teams in Houston, Orlando, Atlanta, Cleveland and Indiana, a matchup I’m sure the Pistons have circled on their calendar after there was a lot of talking in the last Pacers game.
The Pistons beat the Suns once this year behind a monster game from Cade Cunningham, but they also got 20 from Jaden Ivey in that game, so will need someone to step up in his absence.
It will be interesting to see if the Suns take the same approach as the Pacers, who blitzed Cunningham every time he got near the ball, and to see how the Pistons respond.
Pistons injuries vs. Suns
Detroit will be missing Jaden Ivey for the foreseeable future but other than that, their injury report is clean.
Jusuf Nurkic, who was recently removed from the Suns’ rotation, has been ruled out with an illness and the Suns have Bradley Beal listed as questionable with an ankle injury.
Devin Booker missed the first game against Detroit but he’ll be back tonight, and Kevin Durant has to be licking his chops after scoring 43 against the Pistons in the first meeting, so even without Beal, the Suns have plenty of firepower.
How to watch Pistons vs. Suns
Hopefully downtown Detroit will be packed today and there will be a lot of fans getting a warm up with the Pistons before the main event at Ford Field. The Pistons tip-off at 4:00 PM ET, a weird start time that will hopefully mess with the Suns more than the Pistons.
If you’re not going, you can watch the game on FanDuel Sports Network Detroit Extra or on 20 Detroit, one of the few games this season on regular TV.
You can listen on the radio on ALT 98.7 or find all of your streaming options here.
Key matchups against the Suns
The first game featured Jaden Ivey and no Devin Booker and this one is the opposite, so the first key matchup is who is going to step up as the secondary scoring option for the Pistons against Booker.
The Pistons allowed Durant and Beal to have monster games in the first meeting but still won by shutting down everyone else.
You know KD and Booker are going to get theirs, so this is a game where the Pistons bench has to thoroughly outplay the Suns as they did in the first meeting behind double-digit scoring from Malik Beasley and Simone Fontecchio.
The Pistons need to share the ball, get everyone involved early and stop everyone not named Durant or Booker from having big games.
There is far more at stake in the Lions’ game obviously, but a Detroit sweep today would make for a great day in the Motor City.