The Pistons fell back into some of their familiar issues against the Knicks on Tuesday night, including their defensive weakness of excessive fouling. Detroit’s always been known to be physical and sometimes even reckless in their defensive intensity, but Jalen Brunson turned that into a problem by smartly drawing fouls on key defenders.
The Knicks took advantage of the Pistons’ fouling
Brunson and his teammates did a great job of making sure fouls were called on the Pistons. Arguably the worst offender early on was Ron Holland II, who picked up three quick fouls in the first quarter alone. Holland is the poster child of reckless Pistons defense, and Brunson made him pay for it.
Just as damaging as Holland, if not more, were the foul troubles of Ausar Thompson and Paul Reed. Thompson finished the game with 6 fouls and Reed had 5. On a night where the Pistons were lacking depth in their center rotation, having those guys in foul trouble hurt a lot.
With those two defensive stalwarts also dealing with foul trouble, the Pistons had to resort to weak center options at times. Tolu Smith saw 6 minutes of action and was unsurprisingly bad in them. The Pistons lost his minutes by 18 points. But they had few other choices when their strong defenders could hardly stay on the floor.
Detroit needs to be adaptable towards officiating
The same foul trouble plagued the Pistons even last season, when they won 60 games. It reared its ugly head too in the playoffs, especially the second round against the Cavaliers. Cleveland got plenty of free throws to buoy their offense against the vaunted Detroit defense.
Of course, the Pistons always play a physical brand of basketball, no matter who’s officiating the game. But they need to be better at adapting their defense once they see how a game is being called. This is especially true when the team is already shorthanded, and foul trouble could dwindle the depth to pitiful levels.
As the season progresses, this is an obvious area of improvement for the Pistons. Fouling is arguably their only real defensive weakness, and it won’t even be a problem in many games. But the next time refs are calling it pretty tight, the Pistons need to be better about laying off their physicality earlier.
That’ll prepare them to do the same come playoff time and avoid picking up losses that could have been avoided. The Pistons can’t spend another playoff run complaining about referee calls without doing anything to adapt towards what’s happening in the game. That’s a surefire way to doom themselves against clever foulbaiters, which most top playoff teams have.
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