Watching the Detroit Pistons against the surprising Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Clippers, the Pistons are an old school “inside out” basketball team that makes most of their living inside the painted area.
Point guard D.J. Augustin, who has started the last three games for Detroit as Brandon Jennings has nursed a hurt thumb, looks to penetrate and score. Jennings will start versus the Warriors, according to Vincent Goodwill of the Detroit Free Press.
The Pistons have a couple of sharp shooters in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Kyle Singler. The Golden State Warriors perimeter defense should be focused on denying ball and not doubling off of those two.
Most of the Pistons offense comes from two sets. They run it through two bigs at the elbows or they play Josh Smith at the free throw line and let him make plays from there.
Smith is utilized in a variety of other aspects as well such as pick-and-roll, pick-and-pop, and post-up situations. The pass-first player, a 34% shooter from midrange last year, often looks for the lob over the top to Andre Drummond. Smith scores within seven feet, so it should be to the Warriors benefit to yield him the three-pointer or midrange.
Drummond is starting to develop a right hook, spinning baseline, though he doesn’t seem to get much elevation on this shot. Drummond needs to be boxed out at all times.
Greg Monroe is a dangerous passer out of double teams and is shooting under 50% for the season.
The Pistons frontcourt does not enjoy stepping out to the three-point line, so Harrison Barnes, Andre Iguodala, Draymond Green and Marreese Speights should have the long-range green light.
From Nicolino DiBenedetto of STATS:
The Pistons are among the worst teams in the NBA, and haven’t looked capable of ending their current slide against Golden State while enduring a seven-game overall skid. Detroit, one of NBA’s lowest scoring teams at 91.9 points per game, shot 6 of 23 from 3-point range in Friday’s 104-88 loss to Milwaukee.
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“Everybody’s trying to get on the same page, but when we get out there, it isn’t working,” said D.J. Augustin, who went 1 for 7 from the floor but 7 for 9 from the line to finish with 10 points. “It’s rough right now, and we know how the fans are looking at us, but we don’t want to lose.”
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