3/10/26 7:30PM Pistons 45-18 @ Nets 16-47

[Tigeraholic1]

Barclays Center - New York, NY

Edited Monday at 12:40 PM by Tigeraholic1

[Deleterious]

Over the last 10 games the Pistons defense is ranked 13th.  Their net rating is down to 17th.  

[Sports_Freak]

Maybe Cade should sit again and see what happens? /s

[Deleterious]

Minnesota picking #26 right now.  Pistons 28th.

[Betrayer]

Without Ausar in the starting lineup everyone's defense is being exposed. Duren, Harris, and Robinson are all poor defenders and Cade has been pretty bad recently as well.

So, of course, with the defense suffering JB has been trying more offensive lineups as if any combination of offensive players on this team is going to beat any other team in the league. Our best offensive players outside of Cade wouldn't crack the top 5 of most other team's best offensive players. You aren't winning that way, no matter who you put in there.

Look, it's not that difficult. Ausar is out so you start Holland or Green to get a similar style player in there and put some defense in the starting lineup. The guy who gets minutes off the bench as a result is Reed. He's highly disruptive on defense and produces anytime he's in the lineup.

Any other minutes you want to give out to guys like Huerter or Sasser - those minutes come from the reduction LaVert and/or Jenkin's minutes.

It really isn't hard to figure this out.

[Deleterious]

The thing that makes no sense.  JB is a defense guy.  It is odd his fallback is more offense instead of defense when all year he has stressed defense first.  

[buddha]

so if the pistons flop at the finish and end up 4th in the east, will we all still be mad even though that's where we thought they'd be before the season started, and they did nothing at the deadline?

i will never not be salty that trajan sat on his ass and did nothing to really help the team.  although now that tatum is back they probably werent going to win it anyway.

 

[buddha]

5 hours ago, Deleterious said:

Minnesota picking #26 right now.  Pistons 28th.

its going to be really funny when we pick before the twolves. 

[Betrayer]

16 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

The thing that makes no sense.  JB is a defense guy.  It is odd his fallback is more offense instead of defense when all year he has stressed defense first.  

I'd love to agree with you that it's odd, but this is what he does in crunch time too.

He comes out and says Stew is the best defensive big in the league but then doesn't play him as a closer, even for just one possession when you need a stop. Same with Ausar, who's a top 5 defender in the entire NBA, and winds up sitting most nights in crunch time because JB opts for poor offense instead of dominant defense.

He's been saying one thing and doing another with his lineups for a long time now.

 

Since we're talking about defense, here are some fun numbers. Over the past 10 games Pistons have had a 104 defensive rating with Ausar on the court (best in the league) and a 119 defensive rating when he's off the court (near the bottom of the league).

There's a reason the sudden turnaround started right about the time he got back from the blood clot last year. This is going to be a tough stretch of games while he's out with the ankle injury.

[Betrayer]

25 minutes ago, buddha said:

so if the pistons flop at the finish and end up 4th in the east, will we all still be mad even though that's where we thought they'd be before the season started, and they did nothing at the deadline?

i will never not be salty that trajan sat on his ass and did nothing to really help the team.  although now that tatum is back they probably werent going to win it anyway.

 

I just want to make sure that wherever we land, we're lined up to get NYK in the 2nd round for some revenge. After that we can (and probably will) lose in the ECF to Boston or Cleveland.

I think that'd be a pretty successful season of development and improvement from a team that was slated to be the 4-6 seed. Then in the offseason hopefully they can address the need for 3-and-D players and/or maybe another perimeter creator.

[Deleterious]

1 hour ago, buddha said:

so if the pistons flop at the finish and end up 4th in the east, will we all still be mad even though that's where we thought they'd be before the season started, and they did nothing at the deadline?

i will never not be salty that trajan sat on his ass and did nothing to really help the team.  although now that tatum is back they probably werent going to win it anyway.

 

I'd be disappointed. You have to be willing to adjust your expectations as the season progresses, and more importantly, you have to take advantage of your opportunities when they're right in front of you. Just ask the people over at Ford Field about that.

[buddha]

38 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

I'd be disappointed. You have to be willing to adjust your expectations as the season progresses, and more importantly, you have to take advantage of your opportunities when they're right in front of you. Just ask the people over at Ford Field about that.

i agree.

that's why i hated the deadline.  they did nothing when they have their best shot at the finals in 15 years.  assuming that "because the core is young" means they will be this good every year is fool's gold.  theyre about to be capped out but refused to make their move for a robin to cade's batman, all because duren "catches lobs real good."

as you point out, the lions were built to win for 5 years, dont worry about losing that nfc championship game, theyre so young!  and then the next year the entire defense is injured, and two years later you finish last in the division.

progress isnt always linear.  teams dont always get better.  the league only bails out the spurs and idiots only hand star players to the lakers, not detroit.

i get that ivey was an albatross and not an asset, but was heurter really the BEST you could do?  you couldnt have thrown a couple seconds in with ivey to get dosunmu?  or even coby white?  as flawed as they are  they would be more productive than heurter.

anyway, rant over.  trajan really missed, imo.  i hope it doesnt cost them this year.

and as far as matching up against the knicks, i wouldnt assume they could beat miami or charlotte right now.  they should, but that assumes ausar is healthy.

[Sports_Freak]

5 hours ago, Betrayer said:

Without Ausar in the starting lineup everyone's defense is being exposed. Duren, Harris, and Robinson are all poor defenders and Cade has been pretty bad recently as well.

So, of course, with the defense suffering JB has been trying more offensive lineups as if any combination of offensive players on this team is going to beat any other team in the league. Our best offensive players outside of Cade wouldn't crack the top 5 of most other team's best offensive players. You aren't winning that way, no matter who you put in there.

Look, it's not that difficult. Ausar is out so you start Holland or Green to get a similar style player in there and put some defense in the starting lineup. The guy who gets minutes off the bench as a result is Reed. He's highly disruptive on defense and produces anytime he's in the lineup.

Any other minutes you want to give out to guys like Huerter or Sasser - those minutes come from the reduction LaVert and/or Jenkin's minutes.

It really isn't hard to figure this out.

Agreed. Our best offense starts with a solid defense. Without the defense, our shooting struggles in the half court. We run, we win. I'm really sure JB realizes that. 

[Sports_Freak]

Stewart being a peace maker is...kinda funny. 😆

[Sports_Freak]

Let's see the Nets with another incredible comeback tonight. Hint: not gonna happen...

[Deleterious]

Little embarrassing that I'm excited they beat the Nets.  

[Deleterious]

Celtics lost tonight.  I think they are the only team with a legit shot at catching Detroit.  But they have a pretty difficult schedule to end the season.

I think if Detroit plays .500 basketball the last 18 or so games, Cleveland and NYK would have to win about 90% of their remaining games to catch the Pistons.  

[buddha]

14 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

Celtics lost tonight.  I think they are the only team with a legit shot at catching Detroit.  But they have a pretty difficult schedule to end the season.

I think if Detroit plays .500 basketball the last 18 or so games, Cleveland and NYK would have to win about 90% of their remaining games to catch the Pistons.  

what about the twolves?

[Deleterious]

38 minutes ago, buddha said:

what about the twolves?

25th right now with 40 wins.  There are about 6 teams all in that 39-40 win range.  Minnesota could fall anywhere in there between 22 and all 27.