Playoff Player Review: Was Ausar Thompson The Detroit Pistons Second Most Impactful Player?

Playoff Player Review: Was Ausar Thompson The Detroit Pistons Second Most Impactful Player?

In today’s episode of the Locked Pistons podcast, we continue our playoff player review. This time we’re talking about Assar Thompson, what he did well, what he didn’t do well, and what he has to improve upon moving forward. We’ll break it all down. Today’s episode, Locked on Pistons podcast. Let’s go. You are Locked on Pistons, your daily Detroit Pistons podcast. Part of the Locked Onet, your team every day. What’s the deal? Welcome back to another episode of the Locked On Pistons podcast. Per usual, I am your host, Cookahillo. You can find me over on Twitter, Cookah Hill. I want to thank you guys for making Lockdown Pistons your first listen every single day. We are free and available on all your podcast platforms. I’ve been hosting the Lockdown Pistons podcast since 2021. Been covering your Detroit Pistons for the last four years. I want to tell you guys that today’s episode is also brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code lockmbna at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. You know where to find us. Whatever podcast platform, leave us a fivestar review over on YouTube. Hit that subscribe button if you haven’t already. Also, you know, check out the description down below for the Substack where we just dropped our K Cunningham playoff review. We’ll be dropping our Sar Thompson playoff review in the next day or so. So stay tuned for that to go along with this podcast on Assar Thompson’s playoffs. Also the playback room. Subscribe over there if you want to watch some live games with us. We’ll have some stuff going on throughout the offseason. Don’t know exactly what we’ll do yet, but we’ll have some content over there for you guys as well. Um, but let’s go ahead and get into today’s episode. We’re going to do it just like we did Cage’s episode. If you haven’t listened to Cage playoff review, we start with the positives, then we move into the negatives, and then we have our final thoughts on what we saw from this player in the playoffs and thoughts on them moving forward. So, and again, this is not to be confu confused with the season review. We’ll have season reviews later on. This is playoff review, which means there only will be like probably seven guys that actually were in the rotation that we’ll do these reviews on. So again, not season review, playoff review. Let’s go ahead and get into it. So we’ll start off with telling you guys his basic box scored numbers in the playoffs. In his first ever playoffs at 22 years old, Assar Thompson, 11 and a half points per game, 5.2 rebounds, 1.0 assist, 1.2 steals, 0.8 blocks. He shot 57% from the field. 0% from the three-point line. Only took.3. I think that’s one three he took in the whole series. He’s shot at 60% on all twos. And he shot 58% from the free throw line. So what we’re going to start at, we’re going to start with the positives. Like I mentioned, the first thing that I think has to be the immediate takeaway from our Thompson’s playoff performance is that his defense translates to the playoffs. His defense is just as impactful. maybe even more impactful to be honest, maybe even more impactful in the playoffs than he is in the regular season. I have some numbers to back this up. We talked about some of these numbers during the p or during the actual series itself, but we’re going to go through it again. The first number I want to bring up is what Jaylen Brunson shot, what he performed like when Assar Thompson was on the floor. And we’re going to go game by game here. In game one, Jaylen Brunson with Assar Thompson on the floor. 15 points on six of 14 shooting, 50 true shooting percentage. Inefficient, 15 points. Game two, 12 points, three of nine shooting, four turnovers, 51 true shooting percentage. Inefficient, turn the ball over. Game three, 10 points, two of eight shooting, 47% true shooting percentage. Inefficient, 10 points. Uh, game four, 11 points, four of 10 shooting from the field, 50.6 true shooting percentage. Again, another inefficient 11 points. Game five when Assar Thompson is on the floor with Jaylen Brunson. Three of 14 from the floor. Three of 14 from the floor, 11 points, 32.2 true shooting percentage. I just complete lockup. And then even in the game six, even in the closeout game of game six where Jaylen Brenson, yes, on the final possession, he got the better of us. Johnson. But for the majority, for the totality of that game, 16 points on seven of 18 shooting, 44.4 true shooting percentage. It is clear as day that when Assar Thompson was on the floor, Jaylen Brunson, not just Brunson, but Jaylen Brunson and the entire New York Knicks offense struggled to score, struggled to get anything really going, anything clean going with the Sar Thompson on the floor. His defense was absurdly impactful on the Detroit Pistons. It’s one of the reasons why this this entire series was really just a defensive battle because of what Assar Thompson was able to do on Jaylen Brunson and verse obviously what OG was able to do on Cade. Two incredible defenders guarding two incredible offensive players. And I thought Assar Thompson did a fantastic job on Jaylen Brunson. Obviously Jaylen Brunson, he did get the final laugh. He got the final shot off gamewinner. You’re going to get beat. When you are guarding that many great players consistently all that time, you will lose once in a while. Just like you will win once in a while. You just want to win more than you lose. And I’d say for the majority of this series, Assar Thompson won versus Jaylen Brunson. His defense was immediately seen as impactful. You can see this by the onoff numbers as well. After the series, and we’ll break, we’ll go deeper into this in a minute, but the Pistons were 11.3 points better with Assar Thompson on the floor than with him off. 11.3 points better. This was the best of any player on the team. I’m not counting Isaiah Stewart because he only played 19 minutes in game one. That was it. Isaiah Stewart, if you want to count those 19 minutes, he was the highest. But it’s a very small sample size. Only played one game. He had the highest onoff of any player on the Detroit Pistons Thompson. That is the defense was 6.2 points better with him on the floor. When he was on the floor, the defense was 10. The defensive rating 103.8. When he’s off the floor, it was 110.0. And then this is the number I really wanted to get into. Offensive rating 110.2 when he was on the floor, 105.0 when he was off. The offense was 5.2. two points better with Assar Thompson on the floor versus with him off. How is that happening? This is another one of those positives because Assar Thompson will get to his negatives. Some things he has to improve on, some things we saw, some of his flaws that were exposed a little bit against the Knicks. But despite those flaws that we’ll get into, he is a positive impact on your offense. Why is that? Number one reason is the Pistons best offense. I tried explaining this games one through four. People didn’t want to listen, but then people came around once actually put up points in game five and game six. But it it whether he’s scoring himself, it doesn’t matter. His the reason why the offense is better with him on the floor, despite his flaws offensively, is because the Pistons, this Pistons roster was built to run in transition and score off of their stops. And they don’t get stops without him on the floor. So therefore, they’re forced to play within the half court setting where this roster is not built to score within the half court. And we saw how much they struggled in this series to score in the half court. The offense was so much better what they saw on the floor because he was enabling them to get stops which then allowed them to push in transition early in transition, fast breaks, easy layups, open threes created, whatever. Even if it’s not a star scoring, that’s not the point. He’s helping them generate their best offense, which is early fast break transition offense. That’s one of the reasons why the offense was so much better with him on the floor. The other reason why, and you saw this a little bit with game five and game six, they got better with it. He got better with this. The coaching staff, I thought, got better with this. But if the team, if the opposing team is going to put two-1 ball against K Cunningham, the Pistons have two guys and Jaylen Durn and Assar Thompson who should be able to obliterate that four on three on the weak side and be able to create open threes and layups. And we talked about this a lot in the film breakdowns we did. The Pistons did a much better job of being able to do that in games five and game six. Space the space the floor a lot better. But also Assar Thompson was just better himself at making reads and showcase that his ability to read the floor, make the right pass and also finish at the ba at the basket on these aloops cutting down the baseline is incredibly impactful for your offense especially when teams are putting two-1 ball at the top of the key on K Cunningham. So those are my biggest takeaways from Assar Thompson. His positive is that his impact is felt. He has flaws and we are going to get to some of his flaws. No, coming up in the next segment. But the main takeaway I took from Assar Thompson’s first playoff series is that he is the second most impactful player on this basketball team. And no matter his flaws, he must play. He has to play because his strengths so very much overwhelm his flaws and impact this team in such a positive way that you have to live with the occasional turnover. You have to live with the occasional offensive possession that maybe they don’t get the spacing correctly. You have to live with the offensive possession where maybe he blows a layup. You have to deal with those because of what he brings to your your overall team on the floor so greatly overwhelms that. and his defense on Jaylen Brunson. I thought it was great to see that his defense did translate to the m to the playoffs impact-wise. And I’m really glad to see that as the series started to progress, especially obviously game five and game six, the Pistons and Assar because I I it’s hard to know it’s hard to pinpoint exactly who you should give credit and not give credit to for this. the the spacing on the floor, getting the spacing a little bit more um exact and precise on where guys should be against the this defensive coverage. Whoever, whether you want to give credit to JB or Assar, whoever it was, the team got much better as the series went on at understanding how they need to space out and make the Knicks pay for the way they were guarding Cade. And Assar Thompson was a main part of that. That’s why he played so well scoring wise in game five and game six. And also, I thought you saw his aggression pick up more and more. And it gives me incredible hope and optimism on what he will look like after an actual offseason where he can actually train and develop what he’ll look like as a driver, as a finisher within a half court offense now that he can actually have an half uh off season to develop because he has flaws there. But despite that, the Pistons were able to be better with him on the floor. He was able to be incredibly impactful and the team was just much better with him on the floor versus off. His defense was tremendous. absolutely tremendous. He makes the defense work himself. I don’t know how he’s that good at it already, but he just makes the defense work himself. And offensively, you saw what he brings to the table, especially in transition. But like I said, especially game five and game six when they started to better understand how to attack the weak side, put him in the dunking spot on the weak side, have them cutting down the lane, and just finish everything at the basket if that’s how the Knicks wanted to play defense. And that’s what the Pistons did. and they had a chance to win the series because they started to figure it out a little bit. So that those were my biggest takeaways from Assar Thompson’s first playoff series. Let me know comment section down below if there are any other positives from Assar Thompson’s playoff series that I didn’t mention that maybe you guys noticed that you guys wanted to let me know again comment section down below or over on Twitter when we come up or a comeback not come up we are already on the come up. When we come back, we will talk about Assar Thompson’s negatives and his flaws and where he must improve and what was highlighted on in those negatives in this playoff series. 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Uh, be a part of the community, all that good stuff. All right, so let’s go ahead and get into Assar Thompson’s negatives, some of the flaws that were brought up in this playoff series that were exposed and that he will have to improve upon moving forward to get even obviously to get even better as a basketball player, but to avoid putting his coaching staff in a position where they feel like they might be better with him on the floor. As much as I disagreed with them taking him off the floor, and as much as I disagreed with the idea that it it made sense to do it, the the tradeoff for offense for defense worked out, and I think the numbers back me up, that it wasn’t worth it. Despite that, I can sit here and still say I understand why the coaching staff felt like they were put into a position at times where maybe it was a better trade-off to do it. I don’t believe it was. I think that was a wrong decision, but I understand why they were put in the position. and Assari has to improve in these areas. So, he’s not putting his coaching staff and his teammates in this position where they’re trying to figure out should they even have him on the floor still. So, let’s start with number one flaw in these playoffs. I think you saw that if he is going to be in this limited role usage wise, which I expect his usage to go higher, but this is even more important if his usage does go higher. He cannot turn the ball over as much as he was through the first four games of this series. first four games of the series, he had three turnovers one game, two turnovers another in 20 minutes, two turnovers in 17 minutes, four turnovers in 21 minutes. That’s way way way too many turnovers for a guy who was not didn’t have the ball in his hands as a creator too often. He had his ball the ball in his hands when you know he was cutting to the basket on lobs, stuff like that. But not too often did you see him with the ball in his hands attacking or creating within the half court to where you should be living with those type of turnovers. those turnovers have to be cut down. He did a much better job. He has zero in the final two games, his two best games of the series. So, he did a better job of it, but that is and not just for him, but it that’s really like the rule for a lot of low usage players. You can’t have your low usage players contributing turnovers because your high usage players are going to turn the ball over, especially a guy like Kade. So, to keep your turnovers down, the the low usage players have to be smart with the ball and not just flipping it around. and Assar was doing that to start the game. I think he needs to improve his handle obviously to help with that. But I also thought that he was rushed at times at the beginning of the series. I thought some of the tempo, some of the defense was getting to him. I don’t I maybe you could say the lights. I don’t think it was the lights, but I some people may say that. I think at times the defense had him rushed and he was rushing passes that he didn’t normally rush and his handle got exposed at times in transition um where he was giving the ball back a little too much. um especially at the beginning of this series. The next problem, next flaw for Assar Thompson that he has to improve upon, he has to stay out of foul trouble. He has to learn how to defend without getting in foul trouble. This series had six games in it. He had five or more fouls in three of them. He fouled out of one of them. The other game he had four. There was only two games where he had less than four fouls in the series. Those two games was game four where it didn’t matter. They didn’t play him a lot anyways. And then game uh game six where he still didn’t play as nearly as much as I would like, but he wasn’t in foul trouble. Those other games, you could make the argument argument that the reason why he wasn’t on the floor was because he was getting in foul trouble, which was then putting his teammate at a disadvantage and he was playing too physical with Brunson. And maybe you could make the argument that it took him a little too long, too long into the series to realize how to defend Jaylen Brunson without fouling and taking himself out the game. You can go back and forth on that. He has to become a better or smarter defender with his fouls in a playoff setting. I think that really hurt the Pistons as well. Um, so that’s defensively. And the other thing offensively, which is obviously I think where a lot of people are going to go with this because he’s not a shooter. Again, it’s hard to diagnose who you want to put this most on, but I’m gonna put it on a star because this is who we’re reviewing here. If you are not going to be a shooter and have that gravity as a shooter, you have to be spacing the floor perfectly each possession in the half court to where you’re making up for that because it’s going to be it’s hard to space the floor and it’s hard to have you have to be perfect at where you’re putting players within the half court to take advantage of spacing with two shooters on the floor. Now, like I mentioned earlier in this in the podcast, game five and six, they did a much better job of this. They were putting him on the weak side within the baseline. He was timing his cuts a lot better versus this uh trapping defense the Nick uh the Pistons were going against. Not the Knicks, the Pistons were going against and they were doing a much better job of just spacing the floor and putting him in the right spots to where it wasn’t as cluttered. I thought through games one through four they were really struggling Assar and the team what whichever one you want to put it on. They were struggling to find out the right timing on cuts, where he should be put at the right times, when he should when he should be in this area, when he should he not be, when he should be on the weak side, when he should be on the strong side, all that stuff. If you are playing two non-shooters, you have to be on point. You have to be crisp with that or it just completely sabotages your half court offense and it makes it extremely hard on your primary initiator, which is K Cunningham. And I thought the Pistons and Assar really struggled with that at times within the half court through games one through four at where he should be and the timing on his cuts. I thought that that is obviously an area that he got much better at in the final two games, but he still needs to much improve the IQ in that area and understanding where he needs to be at what time. Um, the other thing that I feel like was a little frustrating to see, I’d say, for the first uh two-ish, maybe three-ish games was his finishing just wasn’t consistent enough, there were times where he got a ball underneath the basket on a cut, especially I feel like in game two, um, where he either held the ball too long and didn’t go up with it right away, or he allowed a smaller guy on the weak side to affect his finish um and and and him not be able to finish the ball. Like there’s one play that comes to mind where they get into a four and three situation during short roll. He dumps off to a SAR underneath the basket. It should be an easy dunk, but he lets a recovering Muel Bridges block him at the rim. First of all, Sar is way too athletic to really let anyone outside of like a sevenfooter block him at the rim. That’s one. two, he’s a too smart of a player and too smart of a of a finisher to allow any kind of recovery like that to where he knows not to maybe take another dribble and finish on the other side or especially when he held the ball a little too long and didn’t go right up with it and was forced into a tougher shot. He’s way too smart, way too athletic of a finisher for those things to impact him. I thought it was through the first few games. Again, the final two games it wasn’t as much, but the first few games you saw him just not being as aggressive as a finisher and not being as as um on point as a finisher in the first few games or allowing guys that shouldn’t affect him as a finisher affect him, which I thought he has he has to get better at. He was a little inconsistent throughout the year as a finisher. He had some high highs, then he would go through a stretch like that mid-Marchch stretch when he was struggling to finish at the rim. He has to become a much better finisher around the rim. Um, and I really like the physicality he came with in the last two games. I mean, he had 22 free throws in the final two games. And it wasn’t like those were from Hackasar. This was from him attacking the basket and being extremely physical and aggressive and forcing fouls because of how athletic he is. That needs to be how he attacks the rim every time. That needs to be how he’s trying to finish at the rim every time. Um, so I thought that was another flaw that he has to improve upon. Um, and then the last thing I’ll say is his handle I thought got better this year, but it’s still not good enough and it has to get much better. I’ve said this now for two years that you would you draft Assar Thompson at five because you believe in the playmaking and the on ball creation that you saw. Maybe not immediately, but you believe that that will be in his future. That’s the only reason why I believe you drafted him five instead of like nine or 10 because then he’s not just a defensive guy. He’s a guy you can trust to be secondary creator. his handle is not good enough or at least not good enough for the coaching staff to trust that upon him consistently. We saw it at times throughout the season, but that’s not we’re not on a season review or on a playoff review and you didn’t really see it at all at all really in this playoff series. So his and he’s too good of a passer. He’s too good of a playmaker. He’s too good of a of a processor, a reader of the defense to where you can’t to where you cannot take advantage of of those things. He has to become a better ball handler and and improve that area so you can take advantage of his passing, his playmaking, his processing, his ability to get to the basket, be an instant paint touch. You need his ball handling to improve to where the coaching staff can trust him because that also is another way to counter how defenses want to guard him. If a guy is can’t is not a great shooter, but he’s on ball, that forces the defense to respect him as a guy on ball that they have to respect as a driver. You see that how they did with Amen in Houston. He was able to be extremely effective the last few games because he has the ball in his hands a lot more than Assar does and he’s attacking downhill and that forces the defense. Even if you don’t respect him as a three-point shooter, you have to respect him as a ball handler and as a driver. And that’s another way to take advantage and create some gravity for a guy who is not respected as a three-point shooter. And Assar has to get his handle to a point where JB Baker staff and this coaching staff trust him to do that stuff. And it was not at a point to where you should trust him in this in this playoff series. And I feel like the Knicks tried to take advantage of that, especially in transition, which you saw him turn the ball over quite a bit early on in this series. So, those are areas I believe he has to improve upon to not put the coaching staff in a difficult decision or or a position to make a decision, excuse me, on whether he should be on the floor or not. And so, he continue he can continue to become this great player that I think he can become. So, that’s why that those are the negatives I took away from and his flaws I took away from this playoff series. If there’s anything I didn’t mention that you guys think of and and and that you guys have, let me know comment section down below or over on Twitter. But coming up, I’ll give my final overall thoughts on Assar Thompson in these playoffs and how I feel about him moving forward, not just next season, but in the future as a playoff player coming up. Ever check your bank account and wonder where did all my money go? 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A lot of people seem to have enjoyed it. So, if you haven’t already, hit the sub sub uh the substack link, my goodness, in the description down below to check all that stuff out. But all right, I want to give my final thoughts and overall thoughts on Assar Thompson playoff performance. Um, I come away from these playoffs saying exactly what I said in the first segment. Um, I feel like Assar Thompson will be the Pistons second most impactful player in the playoffs moving forward until they get another star. Um, and maybe that star is a star. Maybe the star is someone on the roster, someone else. Maybe it’s Jane Ivy, whatever. Um, but until that happens, I think Assar Thompson will be the Piston second most impactful player. Um, because of just how unique and how versatile of a of a player he is. His defense is 10 like 10 year plus of all defensive teams worthy. Like so so good defensively where I won’t be surprised if he finds himself in like top three, top four, top five defensive player of the year votings multiple years. That’s how great of a defender he is. He’s He’s that good of a defender and it translated to the playoffs. How devastating he can be in transition as an offball cutter, as an offball athlete, just sprinting the floor. It It stretches the defense in a different way than, let’s say, a three-point shooter would. He’s stretching him all the way to the baseline rather than out to the three-point line. and his ability to catch and finish anything at the rim on these lobs is is and no one on the floor is able to get up with him to it’s it’s really just it’s a it’s a great offense. It it it truly is any kind of four on three within the half court or in transition you have to cover Asar’s lobs or one you will give up an easy lob to him and he’ll finish or two if you do cover his lob you have a guy like Jaylen Duran in the short role who can finish at the rim off a live dribble or make the crosscourt skip pass to an open three-point shooter if the weak side defender wants to tag down on SAR which we saw multiple times and I broke down in the film breakdowns like he did multiple times with THJ. where THA’s defender would then tag down Assar is like we’re done giving up these laps to Assar. And then Durham makes the kick to THA and now he gets a three. That Assar’s ability as like the Aaron Gordon type role like Aaron Gordon does for Denver in that dunker spot cutting along the baseline. his impact in that regard, it stretches the defense in a different way that a shooter doesn’t and it creates its own type of spacing if you execute the positioning on the floor correctly enough, which again, we just talked about how that has to be something they perfect moving forward. I do believe that there are obvious flaws that defenses are going to try to take advantage of. Like for example, they tried hiding Bigs on Assar Thompson. tried hiding Josh Hart on Assar Thompson letting him roam that they did try to do those things and if you don’t like we mentioned put players in the or these players whether you whether it’s the coaches putting them there or the players just supposed to be there and not knowing or not being you know aware enough whatever whichever one it is with that with those flaws being there you have to be able to take advantage and counter it with the way you you’re supposed to which is like how they did in game five and game six. He has to improve on those flaws to where he can be an even better basketball player and be trusted with the ball in his hands and be that secondary career that they desperately need. But for a long long time, this team was was was begging begging for a wing with length and athleticism like Assar Thompson. They finally got it. I feel like my entire time watching the Pistons, they’ve been asking for a guy like this and they finally did. and then you waited for the playoffs to see, okay, he was impactful in the regular season. Will he be just as impactful in the playoffs? And I think the numbers and what we saw happen back up the fact that yes, he was incredibly impactful for the Detroit Pistons. So, Assar has some things he has to work on. He has to improve on those things. I think he will. Ball handling, decision- making, finishing at the rim on non-dunks, improving as a shooter. Maybe he becomes a shooter. that would be great, too. I’ve kind of just tossed that to the side because I don’t know how realistic it is to expect him become a shooter. So, I haven’t put that in any of these things. Obviously, that’s one that you want to see happen, but I I I’d like to stay realistic. I don’t know how realistic that’s going to be. But, if he does become a better shooter, obviously that’s that helps as much as well. But, nonetheless, no matter what happens, this player that Assar is right now proved to be impactful for them in the playoffs. And I I’ll give Troy Weaver this, man. You guys know I’m not the I’m not a fan of his at all, but when he said before the draft, I’mma knock this one out the park with the fifth overall pick, I I think he did. He He if there’s one pick that I will give him credit for, it is the Assar Thompson pick at number at number five because Asar at five was not the popular pick. People remember when I picked Assar at five in this draft, I got laughed at by the locked on draft community. I got laughed at. People did not like Asar at five. Troy Weaver went against I would say the heavy favorites for the for that pick and I think he knocked that one out the park. So I’ll give him credit on that and I think Assar is going to be really good for the Pistons for a long time. So let me know in comment section down below or over on Twitter how you feel about Assar Thompson’s first playoff series, the positives, the negatives, and your thoughts on him moving forward. Again, comment section down below or over on Twitter. That’s all I’ve got for you guys today. Thank you guys. Make locked on Pistons your first listen every single day. free and available on all your podcast platforms. And until next time, I’ll see you guys later. Stay safe out there. Hit the description down below. Until next time, peace out everybody.

Can Ausar Thompson’s defensive prowess elevate the Detroit Pistons to new heights in the NBA playoffs? Discover how this rising star’s impact on the court reshapes the Pistons’ strategy and prospects.

Explore Thompson’s standout defensive performance against top players like Jalen Brunson, and learn how his unique offensive contributions are making waves despite shooting limitations. Host Ku Khahil breaks down Thompson’s strengths, areas for improvement, and potential to become a cornerstone for the Pistons alongside Cade Cunningham. With insights into Troy Weaver’s draft success and Thompson’s evolving role, this episode offers a comprehensive look at the Pistons’ playoff journey.

Please tune in to uncover the secrets behind Thompson’s game-changing plays and what they mean for the Pistons’ future.

SUBSTACK: kukhahil.substack.com

PLAYBACK: playback.tv/watchpistons

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