11/13/24 7:00PM Pistons at Raptors

[Tigeraholic1]

[Betrayer]

Tonight's game is versus the Bucks (Raptors are Friday).

Ivey and Tek are both out with toe injuries. Probably goes without saying that THJ will be out.

Expect a lot of Sasser and Holland minutes, maybe even some Wendell Moore.

[Deleterious]

Beasley putting on a show.  8 made 3 pointers with over 7 minutes left in the 4th.

[Deleterious]

WTF was Duren doing there?  Big man holding the ball down near his knees and gets it stolen.  

[Deleterious]

Defender wasn't even pressing Cade and Cunningham just throws the pass to Sasser out of bounds.  Dumb stupid turnovers like that drive me insane.  

[Deleterious]

Sasser has his prayers answered on a desperation 3 point heave.  

[Deleterious]

Pistons ball inbounding at half court with 0.9 seconds left.  Tie game.  

[Deleterious]

I mean, they got Holland a lob attempt off of that.  He missed it but it was a really nice play design.  

[Deleterious]

Wow!  They called a foul on the lob and Holland is going to the line with 1 second left and the game tied.  

[Deleterious]

Holland bricks both FT's and we go to OT.

[Sports_Freak]

At least the Pistons are exciting again. 

[Deleterious]

This was the inbound play Holland was fouled on.

 

[Deleterious]

Bucks open OT by going on an 8-0 run.  

[TP_Fan]

What an ugly display by the pistons.  Up 18 and blow it. FTs to win, miss em both.  Down 8 after the tip in OT.  So unserious.

The NBA needs an overhaul though, they have got to figure out how to rein in the scoring.  Way too many points. NBA is allergic to defense. It’s just dunks and a barrage of 3 pointers. It’s not exciting when every team scores over 100.  It’s gotta be under.  

Edited November 14 by TP_Fan

[Deleterious]

Not a lot of help for Cade.  35 points on 34 shots is not good especially with the TO's.  

Damn rookie needs to make one of those FT's.  

[Betrayer]

I swear I’ve aged 10 years watching this team over the last week. Every game down to the wire and crazy endings. 

Pistons had a decent showing in this one on the road with 4 rotation players out and another getting kicked out. Just couldn’t put it away. Didn’t help that Giannis turned into KD from the perimeter and hit all his free throws on top of it. 

[casimir]

8 hours ago, TP_Fan said:

What an ugly display by the pistons.  Up 18 and blow it. FTs to win, miss em both.  Down 8 after the tip in OT.  So unserious.

I'm not sure its quite that simple.  The NBA can be a game of runs.  And also consider that teams are likely to look past the Pistons given how awful they've been the past several seasons.  I think the Pistons are taking some teams by surprise early on.  It might not last long.  At the very least, they appear to be more competitive on the floor.

And, sure, up 18 and lose in OT.  They were missing some key cogs to start the game and then lost another one during the game.  Plus this was the second OT game in a row.  Plus they probably don't know what to do with themselves when they're up 18 and the opponent comes roaring back.

[Hongbit]

WTF Holland!  Can’t lose that way.

I hope they don’t miss the play-in by 1 game.   

[Motor City Sonics]

If only they could finish........they'd have a winning record, they've been in just about every game since the 0-4 start.   Young team, it's gonna happen, but the East is puke this year.  

[NYLion]

13 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

At least the Pistons are exciting again. 

Yep, that's what I take from this. They're exciting and they're making progress (hard not to make progress from rock bottom), that's all we can ask for right now. If they make a play-in that's a bonus.

Regardless, Holland has to make one free throw there rookie or not and Cade, again, has to be better down the stretch.

Edited November 14 by NYLion

[Deleterious]

Confused about Stewart. He did a nice job improving his shot and at a minimum became an average three point shooter.

So why has he only attempted 5 in 13 games? 

[Betrayer]

17 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

Confused about Stewart. He did a nice job improving his shot and at a minimum became an average three point shooter.

So why has he only attempted 5 in 13 games? 

From what I've heard/read about this from local pods and writers, it's a combination of two factors:

1. JB's system doesn't have the Center playing that role. He admitted this in a recent postgame interview and said "that's on me" and that he needs to look into how he can incorporate it more since it's a skillset that Stew had last year.

2. In the offseason JB communicated to Stew that his role would be a paint focused Center again and wanted to maximize his strength on the offensive glass, Stew was excited to get back to banging and rebounding, and so he's not looking for his shot even when the opportunity arises.

Hopefully JB sees what we see and will adapt his system over time. They need to invert Stew and Holland. Same with Ausar. Defenses simply ignore those two wings on the perimeter and that allows them to collapse into the paint.

[Deleterious]

Thompson out tonight.

Hardaway and Fontecchio are doubtful.

Ivey is questionable.  

[Betrayer]

4 hours ago, Deleterious said:

Thompson out tonight.

Hardaway and Fontecchio are doubtful.

Ivey is questionable.  

"Reconditioning" - now injuries get to take even longer.

I don't recall that term existing a few years ago. Sure, you had minutes restrictions to ease guys back in who've been out for a while, but not 2 more weeks tacked on to every injury that had the player out for a few weeks (yes, I know it's been longer for Ausar, but the Pistons did this with much shorter injuries last season).

Bring him back. Let him play 15 minutes to start getting his legs. An out-of-shape Ausar is still in 10x better shape than Harden at the beginning (or middle or end) of every season. Guys like Burks, Bogie, and Morris came to camp like they spent the summer at Burger King last year.

Yes, this is an old man rant. Get that "reconditioning" off my lawn.

[Deleterious]

Cade has 5 assists with over 6m52s left in the 1st quarter.