FAST BREAKDOWN
Three quick observations from Wednesday night’s 123-114 win over the Houston Rockets…
SLAM DUNK – The Pistons began the second half of the season just as they began the first half – with a road win over a team that made it to the conference finals last spring. The win at Houston was notable for Houston’s aggressive employment of the tactic of intentionally fouling Andre Drummond. The Rockets opened the third quarter with little-used K.J. McDaniels fouling him five times in the first nine seconds. Drummond shot 16 free throws in less than three minutes and Houston erased a nine-point halftime deficit shortly after Drummond went to the bench, hitting 4 of 16 foul shots. He made 6 of 8 to start the fourth quarter, though, as the Pistons rebuilt a 16-point lead midway through the quarter. Drummond finished 13 of 36, smashing the franchise record for attempts in a game, which was held by George Yardley and Walter Dukes with 24, and was three off the NBA record held by Dwight Howard. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Marcus Morris led the Pistons with 22 points, Morris hitting three fourth-quarter triples to repel Houston’s comeback attempt. Pistons other than Drummond had a terrific night at the foul line, making 22 of 23. Dwight Howard went out in the first minute after he and Ty Lawson went down in a pile in a play that resulted in Andre Drummond picking up a foul.
FREE THROW – Houston built its roster and installed its offense to fully exploit the inherent advantage of taking 3-point shots as opposed to jump shots inside the arc. The Rockets are No. 2 in the league, barely behind Golden State, in number of 3-point shots attempted per game, 30. They’re No. 4 in the league in percentage of points scored from the 3-point line at 30 percent. The Pistons have generally ranked in the NBA’s top 10 in statistics like number of shots from the 3-point arc as a percentage of overall shots during Stan Van Gundy’s reign and they’re ninth this season in 3-point tries per game at 26.2. But neither team is hitting those shots as often as they’d expected this season, the Pistons 23rd in 3-point percentage (.335) and Houston 17th (.348). But the Pistons held their own with the Rockets, finishing 12 of 30 to Houston’s 12 of 24. Houston hit 6 of 9 in the fourth quarter, launching them quickly after the Pistons went ahead by 16 points. The Pistons got out of the blocks quickly, hitting 5 of 10 in the first quarter to take a 10-point lead.
3-POINTER – The Pistons are pretty close to a middle-of-the-pack offensive team this season, ranking 16th in scoring (101.4) and 20th in offensive efficiency (101.5). But they’re 27th in assists. Is that an alarming statistic or does that statistic not carry a lot of meaning. “It does and it doesn’t,” Stan Van Gundy said. “I think we can pretty well measure our ball movement watching it on film and know if it’s good.” But even when the Pistons are playing at a high level offensively, they probably aren’t going to have a high ratio of assisted baskets. “Most of Marcus’ (Morris) baskets are going to be unassisted and we go to him down there. We probably post up about as much as anybody between he and Andre (Drummond) – those aren’t going to be assisted buckets. Reggie’s (Jackson) been able to get to the rim and score a lot. I look at it, but I try to look deeper. We’ve certainly had problems with ball movement, but it goes beyond assist statistics and I think we’re getting better moving the ball.” The Pistons average 18.9 assists a game. They finished with 23 on 38 baskets with Jackson leading them with nine and Jennings adding four.
