The common denominators in the Detroit Pistons' four wins

The Detroit Pistons won their fourth game of the season on Sunday, 129-117, against the Washington Wizards. As embarrassing as it may be, every win from this point forward should be studied to identify what went right.

To date, Detroit has wins over the Hornets, Bulls, Raptors and Wizards. Let’s take a deeper look into the similarities in each of those games. What did Detroit do well in each one? Is there a metric that the Pistons must focus on in order to come away with a win?

The Detroit Pistons dominate the boards

Surprisingly, Detroit, in general, does pretty well rebounding the ball. They currently rank right in the middle at 17th in the NBA in total rebounds, and seventh in offensive rebounding.

In the four games that the Pistons have won this season, they are dominating on the glass on the offensive end. Detroit has an offensive rebounding percentage of 30.5 percent in games that they’ve won, which is higher than their season average of 25.9 percent.

Offensive rebounding percentage is an estimate of the percentage of available offensive rebounds grabbed. Detroit crashing the glass on offense inevitably leads to second chance opportunities, which makes sense as to why there is a direct correlation between having success here, and coming away with a win. 

The leaders for Detroit on the offensive boards are Jalen Duren with 3.4 per game, Ausar Thompson with 2.1, and Isaiah Stewart with 1.9. The work of these three gives the rest of the team extra chances to cash in, giving us a better chance at the victory.