Betrayer

Please get Ausar and Duren back in this game.

Was thinking the same thing. Just don’t sit him at all in the 4th and we have a chance.

Lavert makes 2 layups and so he thinks he should jack up a three with zero ball movement and a full shot clock.

What’s difference coming out of the half on both ends. Team looks like they finally showed up to play. Hopefully they keep the intensity.

Also hard for a team to shoot 60 percent if you’re playing defense (and not turning it over).

This is just bad basketball by the Pistons. Turnovers, bad defense, not getting back, not rotating, getting beat off the dribble.

Jenkins too.

Tobias getting killed out there on defense.

ESPN announcers killing Lavert, as they should. Already called him “thirsty” when he was over dribbling and shot hunting, called him out on passing up the three for a turnover, and then taking that terrible air ball.

Get Lavert out of there.

Scoring 29 should be good in a quarter. Not when you allow 37.

Securing the defensive board has been a real problem for this team since the all star break.

Of course he took out Ausar, that should help

I’m not sure if Atlanta can keep up this scoring pace, but I’m 100 percent sure we cannot. Time to play some D. Hopefully that’s why JB took that timeout.

Has ATL missed a shot yet? Draining threes like we’re playing against Steph x5 out there.

Crunch time is typically defined as the last 5 minutes of the 4th. I'm not a big fan of the idea for a few reasons... The first reason is that's he's far less useful as an off-ball player. He's a backup PG. More importantly, the second reason is that you have a major advantage - especially on defense - that you're throwing away. You have a 6'6"+ PG and he can be the smallest guy in your lineup. As hard as Daniss works on defense, he was on the struggle bus trying to contain Reaves in the 2nd half due to the size difference. On that last shot by Reaves you can see Daniss has great position, loads up, and jumps as high as he can to block the shot, but doesn't even bother it in any way. Thirdly, we all know JB would choose Ausar as the guy to bench to make this happen, and that's just an idiotic choice in the last 5 minutes of a game for so many reasons that we've all discussed a million times. For the record, I wasn't a fan of Schroeder sharing minutes with Cade last year for all of these same reasons. So, if we're taking Duncan's minutes when he's having an off night or if we're talking about 1 possession on offense, then sure. Otherwise, no thanks, I'm not getting smaller or taking Ausar off the court in the last 5 minutes of a game.

I hate that JB doesn't do the smart thing and just foul when he's up 3 (or even put his best defenders in most of the time), but JD did a nice job of staying down on Luka's pump fakes and crowding him without fouling.

I'm not sure it's the competition so much as the lack of consistency that defines every second or third string player. If those guys were consistent they'd be starters or stars. He's getting the same shots he's been getting all along - open threes and open 12 footers. He's just hitting them again like he was earlier in the season. I'm just hoping he's on the upswing and not the downswing again when we roll into the playoffs.

Great win against a team we should have lost to without Cade and Stew. Say what you will about the Laker being frauds as contenders - they certainly are - but they're still a playoff team that should have beaten us without Cade. Clutch performance by Jenkins, who seems to have found his groove again now that he's starting. I only hope it continues when Cade comes back and he goes back to being a backup. The Jenkins we've seen these last few games would be huge off the bench in the playoffs.

In just 24 minutes.

To be fair, nobody was expecting them to lose to Washington or Golden State without Curry. Same with Milwaukee and Indy. Those are in fact lottery teams. It's the games against LA, ATL, MIN x2, OKC, TOR, ORL, and CHA that will be a struggle. The majority of their remaining games are against playoff teams.

That's rough. This was one of the 5 games they had a good chance to win.

The worst part about the 65 game rule is that due to disqualifications Jalen Duren could very well make an All-NBA team. Get ready for that contract to put a chokehold on this franchise.

I'd be very happy with the Pistons going 7-7 in this stretch, but I'm not super confident about that without their MVP level player. On the other hand, Boston not only has their MVP level player who got them to the #2 seed, but they've just added another MVP level player. Two very different situations and I think this has the potential to come down to the wire.

I don't know. There's 14 games left and if you look a bit deeper into how these teams have been playing more recently, I feel like it's actually a tough schedule. Washington, Golden State, Philly, Milwaukee, and Indy - All bad. There we agree. That's 5 probable wins, but the other 9 games... LA is 9-1 in their last 10 and they're on a tear. ATL has won 10 in a row and is the hottest team in the NBA. NO is 6-4, playing much better with no pick to tank for. MIN is a handful and we play them twice. OKC - just call this an automatic loss. TOR just beat us when we actually had Cade. ORL has found their groove and are 7-3 recently. CHA is playing well and are also 7-3 recently. That's a tough road without Cade and with BOS breathing down our necks.