Pistons' worst-case playoff scenario is shaping up in the East

The Milwaukee Bucks have won eight of their last 10 games and are now just 1.5 games behind the Charlotte Hornets for the final play-in spot, an outcome Pistons fans should be cheering against. 

The Bucks have struggled this season with various injuries as well as dealing with non-stop trade rumors, many of which now seem to have been promoted by (ah never mind no one cares)... I mean, that were completely legitimate!  

Anyway, the Bucks have started to roll and that is without Giannis Antetokounmpo in the lineup. He’ll be back soon, so this is certainly a situation that the top seeded Pistons will be monitoring closely. 

The Bucks aren’t your standard 8-seed 

When you look at teams 7-10 right now, they are all legitimately flawed and mediocre. The Magic, Heat and Hawks have been hovering around those spots all season and the 10th-seeeded Hornets might actually be the best and most dangerous team out of that group. 

While a playoff matchup with Charlotte would be fun for those who like technical fouls, the team I am most worried about isn’t in that group at all, it’s the 11th seed Bucks. 

The Bucks have been missing players all season, including Giannis, so it’s hard to gauge where they might be with better health. The Bucks were 9-5 to start the season before running into a seven-game losing streak that changed their trajectory. 

Since then, players like Ryan Rollins and Kevin Porter Jr. stepped up and they’ve been on a tear since the trade deadline passed and all of the talk around Giannis died down. 

Talent wise, I don’t think the Bucks are the 8th seed, and even if they are, they have one of the best players in the world, a guy who the Pistons do not want to face in the first round of the playoffs. 

That would actually be a huge gift to the other contenders in the East, who would be playing teams without a Giannis.  

I am not saying the Pistons can’t beat the Bucks, but Giannis has a long history of winning against Detroit, both at home and on the road, and Milwaukee is one of the few teams in the East that can match up against Detroit’s physicality. The Pistons haven't fared much better against Myles Turner historically, making Milwaukee potentially the most dangerous first-round team they could face.

The East is balanced enough this season that none of the potential playoff opponents will be a cakewalk, but it would be best if the Pistons could avoid Giannis altogether, especially with Milwaukee's guards playing so well. 

The return of Giannis and the Bucks would add another wrinkle to the playoffs, one that Detroit would rather not deal with.