I’m not going to huff and puff too much about one blowout loss, but last night’s evisceration at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers should be a wakeup call to the Detroit Pistons, as that was one of the worst performances they’ve had in a long time. It was the tail end of a back-to-back, and the Cavs are very good, but that was just plain ugly.
Though you can’t make too much of one game (well, unless you are on Twitter, where the sky has fallen, and everyone should already be traded), there have been trends in these four games that the Pistons need to reverse.
The Detroit Pistons have been awful in the first quarter
I don’t know if the Pistons are sharing a glass of cough syrup before games, but they have come out flat in all but one of them so far. They’ve been listless, going through the motions and playing with no energy at the beginnings of games, even in the home opener, which is inexplicable.
The Pistons have a –8.8 scoring margin in the 1st quarter so far, which is 29th in the league, only ahead of Brooklyn and worse than the stinking Wizards. It’s hard to win games when you start with a nearly double-digit deficit in the first quarter, so the Pistons have to find a way to get out to faster starts.
That might mean shaking up the starting five, as the Pistons come alive when Isaiah Stewart and Ron Holland come onto the floor. We’re not there yet, but it’s a concern that the starters are giving up these big leads right away and coming out flat.
The Pistons’ offense has stunk
This was and is a concern, especially with Jaden Ivey, Caris LeVert and Marcus Sasser out, as the Pistons offense has been stagnant and just flat-out awful at times.
They are 28th in offensive efficiency right now, and last night was one of the ugliest offensive performances I’ve seen out of this team. Aside from shooting 37 percent as a team on the night (!) and committing an incredible 25 turnovers, the offense just looked lost.
They were bumping into each other, standing around, moving into each other’s spots and just throwing the ball away. I get that Cleveland’s defense is good, but the Pistons should have been able to move the ball around against the slower team. Instead, they just stood around, played ISO, and didn’t even get a shot off half the time.
This is a work in progress and is going to be until they get healthy, but right now, this team relies far too much on transition buckets to get offense. I don’t know what the answer is other than “get healthy” but it’s a concern.
Cade Cunningham has played poorly so far (last night might have been the worst game of his career), but the entire offense just looks stagnant and flat any time they aren’t in transition or attacking early.
The Pistons foul too much
After committing another 29 fouls last night that led to 35 Cleveland free throws, the Pistons are now tied for dead last in the NBA in personal fouls per game.
They want to play physical, but so many of the fouls last night were just lazy, unnecessary, and stupid. On consecutive plays early in the game, the Pistons played 23 seconds of staunch defense only to bail the Cavaliers out by fouling jump shooters.
This happened many times throughout the game and absolutely killed the momentum the Pistons could have gotten from those possessions. If Evan Mobley is going to make a 20-foot baseline fadeaway, so be it, but you can’t foul him in that spot, which the Pistons did several times.
It was an ugly game. They will learn and move on, and I think we’ll see a much different effort against the Magic tomorrow, but these early trends are concerning.