FAST BREAKDOWN
Three quick observations from Friday night’s 102-95 win over the Milwaukee Bucks
SLAM DUNK – Ersan Ilyasova was 0 of 7 from the 3-point line over the first 94:24 of two Pistons games against the only NBA team he’d ever played for before this season, Milwaukee. But when Marcus Morris grabbed a big offensive rebound of Andre Drummond’s missed hook shot and the Pistons clinging to a six-point lead over Milwaukee, Ilyasova drained a huge triple with 1:36 to play Friday as the Pistons won their third straight game. They never trailed – Ilyasova hit the game’s first shot – but never led by more than 14 and their double-digit leads were never long lasting. But the Pistons made 12 straight free throws down the stretch with the Bucks fouling to stop the clock and hit 19 of 22 in the fourth quarter. Andre Drummond had his fifth 20-rebound game of the season, finishing with 17 points and 23 boards. Marcus Morris and Reggie Jackson scored 23 apiece for the Pistons, who committed just 10 turnovers and held a 25-10 edge in points off of turnovers.
FREE THROW – It’s going to be something of a chicken-or-the-egg argument until the Pistons can test themselves against opponents with better defensive rankings, but they came into Friday’s game with their first consecutive games of 50 percent or better shooting since February 2014 and shot 52.4 percent in the first half against Milwaukee before missing eight straight shots midway through the third quarter to tail off. They finished at just 41.5 percent, but the Pistons shot under 40 percent eight times in their first 17 games. The Bucks have tightened their defense considerably since a lineup change three games ago, holding teams to 85.3 points per game over that stretch, so the Pistons beat that three-game average by 17 points. The four opponents they will have hosted during their current home stand – Houston, Phoenix, Milwaukee and the Los Angeles Lakers – all entered the week in the bottom third in defensive ratings. But as Stan Van Gundy noted, it didn’t matter when they scored 85 points on 36.5 percent shooting in losing to the Lakers or when they scored 88 points on 34.1 percent shooting in their loss at Milwaukee last week. The Pistons scored 116 points against Houston and 127 in an overtime win over Phoenix. Van Gundy is concerned because he sees some signs of defensive slippage and doesn’t have any practice time – not with the Pistons due to play five games in seven days starting with Sunday’s date with the Lakers – available to address his concerns. But it looks like the offense is showing signs of awakening from its early woes, which he hung on poor ball movement and uncommonly cold shooting.
3-POINTER – The return of Greg Monroe – playing at The Palace in a uniform other than Detroit’s for the first time in his sixth NBA season – prompted another round of questions for Stan Van Gundy on the organization’s thought process when he took over after the 2013-14 season with Monroe approaching restricted free agency. “The issue that wouldn’t go away – Greg’s an outstanding player and a great person – is were we going to pay huge money for two centers and not have money to address the other spots? Greg played some at the four and was good, but his best position is at center. He knew that; we knew that. So what of your resources are you going to tie up at basically one position?” Asked about signing Monroe to have his rights and then using him as a trade chip, he said that was heavily considered. But they’d studied similar situations – citing Houston keeping both Omer Asik and Dwight Howard – and found that teams wind up having to deal at a discount because teams know their hand is forced.
