Sixers Visit Motown to Take On Pistons

By Sean Kennedy

Another team who opted to undergo a re-tooling rather than a complete re-build this past offseason, Detroit hasn’t seen the pieces fit together quite right during their 6-10 start to the season. The Pistons signed free agent Josh Smith to a 4-year, $54 million contract, and traded Brandon Knight away for Brandon Jennings, before signing the former Buck to a 3-year, $24 million deal. Unfortunately, the defense hasn’t gelled quite like the team would have hoped, with a gambling system forcing the second-highest percentage of turnovers, at the expense of allowing the highest opponent’s effective field goal percentage in the NBA.

Offensively, none of the Pistons are particularly effective from behind the arc, which is to be expected with the poor spacing afforded by starting Josh Smith, Greg Monroe, and Andre Drummond together. However, the flip side is that the Pistons currently sport the best offensive rebounding percentage in the league. The Sixers will have a tall task ahead of them to keep Detroit off the glass, but may be better equipped than most teams with Evan Turner an excellent rebounder at the small forward position.

Rodney Stuckey has come on of late for the Pistons, and now leads the team in scoring at 16.9 ppg while coming off the bench. Stuckey does the majority of his damage at the rim or from the mid-range on the right side and will be a tough defensive assignment for Tony Wroten or whoever else is charged with the task. The other guy makes the leap this season is Andre Drummond, who is averaging a double-double with 12.0 points and 11.8 rebounds, but has been completely flummoxed from the foul line, where he’s just 28.6% on the season. How any professional can make barely more than 1-in-4 from 15 feet away is a greater mystery than Stonehedge or the Lost City of Atlantis. Drummond leads the charge on the offensive glass with 4.5 per game, so in those instances where he does come away with a second opportunity, Philadelphia should feel free to hack away.

The Pistons have plenty of size to throw at the Sixers but they might be the least-equipped team in the league to take advantage of Philadelphia’s terrible perimeter defense. However, we’ve seen all year how poorly the Sixers take care of the basketball and Detroit thrives on that sort of carelessness. Philadelphia may keep things close but the Pistons should ultimately prevail.