The Detroit Pistons (23-19) defeated the Houston Rockets (22-22) 123-114 on Wednesday, despite a nightmare free-throw game from Drummond.
The most important quarters in an NBA game are the first and fourth and those two made the difference here for Detroit. They outscored the Rockets 71-58 in those quarters and it really wasn’t close aside from a small stretch in the third quarter when the Rockets decided to go to a hack-a-Drummond strategy. Usually Houston is one of the best teams at getting to the free-throw line, but when a team takes 59 free-throw to your 18, it's hard to overcome, even if you did purposefully send one player to the charity stripe. This was the first time Detroit has won in Houston since 2005.
No one player played spectacular for the Pistons tonight, but it was a great team-win against a hot team. All five starters scored in double-figures and approached 100 points between the five of them. No starter scored less than 17 points and no starter scored more than 22, so that's the definition of a team-win. If you happen to own Andre Drummond in your fantasy league, you can kiss your free-throw percentage goodbye with the line he put up. Yes, he did record a double-double, but he went 13-for-36 from the free-throw line to put together one of the most ugly free-throw stat lines in NBA history. Houston actually went to a hack-a-Drummond strategy to start the third quarter and went on a huge run to ultimately get him benched for a long period of time. That still wasn’t enough though, as this Pistons team was scoring at will. Up next for the Pistons is a date with the New Orleans Pelicans on Thursday.
James Harden was just majestic in this game even in a losing effort and he carried the Rockets on his back with a big triple-double. Harden finished the game with 33 points, 17 rebounds and 14 assists in the loss in one of the stat lines of the season. Dwight Howard has been playing some of his best basketball as of late, but he left here in the opening minutes due to an ankle injury. Trevor Ariza continued to struggle, as he went just 1-for-8 from the field to tally three points, four rebounds and one assist in another lackluster performance. It's hard to put a finger on why this team is hovering around .500 aside from the bad defense, but the lack of quality play from players like Ariza, Terrence Jones and Ty Lawson are all good bets on why. Houston will look to bounce back in their next game on Friday against the Milwaukee Bucks.
