I Love This Pistons Team

I Love This Pistons Team

All right, guys. Let’s talk the Pistons. The 13-2 won 11 games in a row Pistons. The defense is great. The offensive rebounding is great. Dannis Jenkins coming out of nowhere is great. Isaiah Stewart’s going to be a roleplayer all-star. We’ll get to all that, but I do want to start with Cade and Duran. So, with Cade, the big thing this year has been that he has just totally owned fourth quarters. And what I would say is the more subtle, but perhaps just as big thing is that the finishing has been better. As I say this, his percentages are messed up because of the Wizards game. But before that game, he was shooting the highest at the rim that he shot in his career. It was like 63%. Before this season, he never hit 60% on shots at the basket. And of course, the guy is just one of the best in the league at like those fadeaway paint jumpers where he kind of bodies somebody out of the way a little bit. I know he’s shooting 28% from three. He’s been better than that. And as far as these fourth quarters where Kade is leading the league in scoring in those quarters, I mean, you can just go down certain games here, man. Like the Wizards game where yes, he shot like 14 for 45, but in the fourth, it felt like just time and time again of him just being too much for Bub or Keshan, whether they were fouling him or he was creating enough separation for his fade twos or a pull-up three where Bub wasn’t able to get high enough on the screen or the switch, I should say. Now, Dennis Jenkins also went insane in that fourth quarter, including an incredible corner three to get him to the overtime, but also, you know, talking about threes off the dribble, like in the Jazz game, he makes two pull-up threes with Nerkits dropping back on a screen in that fourth quarter, including also just bodying up Kee or Si Makyuk for a couple of tough baskets in the Philly game. He just kept finding ways to get separation on Ubé, whether it was, as he often will do, like back downs that turn into these paint fadeaways, like that was the basket that really sealed it. another time a straight drive past him when he rejects like a Javvante screen and then dunks on Drummonds. You get it. Kade’s doing great things in fourth quarters. I haven’t even talked about the passing like he routinely just the amount that he has to run for this offense. The amounts of time that he two to the ball comes on him and he just makes the right pass to whoever it is. Assar cutting Durn in the middle of the floor. Stew in the middle of the floor. Duncan flying around off the ball. Anyway, I mentioned Duran. Let’s talk about Jaylen Duran. So Duran’s averaging what like 21 and 12 or whatever it is this season. He’s better defensively. He’s more under control with the ball, making more plays off the dribble. Guys are also just kind of bouncing off of him now. Like I it feels like he has reached this point of athleticism and strength where he’s just too much for guys to handle. I mean, you see plays of him just knocking Quinton Jackson out of the way, a Kongwoo out of the way, beating Drummond in like a sprint basically to the basket with the ball after Drummond is high up on a Cade screen and Cade hits Durham with the pocket pass. He’s also been getting these really high passes from like I mean Kade or Dennis Jenkins in a few of these games where only he can get it and he can get it while still going in stride rolling to the basket. Like the guy is just such a force around the rim. I haven’t talked about the offensive rebounding but yeah I mean this is the heart of the of the offense, right? It’s Duran screening for Kade. It’s not just that but that’s like their central thing. And then after that I mean you have Dennis Jenkins who’s going crazy from three. I mean him being a four-year college guy, it makes sense. Like there are plays where he will run a screen action, kick the ball out, relocate to get the ball again, and then get them into their next action. Like he’s super smart and he also has this way to keep his dribble alive. Like there was a play in the Bulls game where he’s driving on Buzzel and it looks like Bzelis has beat him to the spot and he just keeps the dribble alive a second longer. He does this like righty scoop layup on the left hand side of the thing. I’m like, “All right, cool. Man, Steu has been one of my favorite players in the league.” Like, we’ll talk about their defense in a second here, but he’s making his threes so far. He’s sealing guys in transition. Carris Levert had back-to-back tough threes over like Barlo in one of those Philly fourth quarters. Assar is getting to the basket more with the ball in his hands this year. Duncan Robinson’s growth as a ball handler and passer in his last couple years there in Miami. Like you still see it here. Like the plays in which he will be like relocating off the ball, pump fake to get the defender off balance and then he’ll drive himself, get to the middle and make the next play. Like that stuff is really valuable, man. And then as far as the defense, I mean, we can start with their last one against Atlanta where late in that game, Assar and Stu were just giving Jaylen Johnson fits. Assar blocks him twice. One helping off a Dyson one, he just stays with Jaylen really well and then pulls off a block like he’s a seven-footer. And then Stu locks him up on a different drive like right after that, which leads to uh Cade getting a three-point play and basically sealing it. Just big athletic defenders everywhere. Man, I think I’ve talked about this game already. It was the Grizzlies game. Like I think I mentioned it in that East video, but I don’t know. It left an impression on me. And also they’ve had guys out and so this was one of the recent times where they had everybody pretty much. And uh man, I mean, you could see from like the beginning of the game like Duncan Robinson’s doing a better job than Jaw expects in one-on-one defense or like shading him to to the baseline to where Stu or Duran can then take care of him if he gets under the basket or Assar’s pressure on the ball on Jaw leads to Landale setting a moving screen or Stu is like playing just high enough on a Jaw screen to not give him the runway to the rim, but then he also gets back to swat a lob pass meant for Landale. Like I’m probably going to do a role player video in a little bit here. Um Isaiah Stewart’s got to be in that video. I know I just said that in the beginning of the vid. I haven’t even really gone to Ron Holland. I mean, of course, he also brings this defensive physicality energy. Like Assar and Holland on the season have like a 97 defensive rating on the court together. And offensively, they’re also not bad either. Actually, it’s a 94 defensive rating with those two. That’s insane. So, yeah, Pistons are really good. Couple of things if you dive into the schedule. Okay. They’ve had some games versus like the Jazz, the Nets, the Wizards, etc. Well, here’s the thing. Number one, they were already good last year, and this feels like a natural extension of just how it would go the following year. Better defensively, tougher. Duran’s better, whatever, right? The other thing is they’ve also had guys out too. I mean, Cade missed like three games in there. Duran missed two games. Assaar just came back after missing like four games. And also, they just beat the Hawks. They beat the Rockets in like game three, which I talked about because I was like, “Yo, man, what they did defensively to the Rockets making their offense look kind of bad in the half court.” That was in the uh the KD trade so far vid. So, they look good to me. Now, possible things that could make them if not fall back down to earth then just I don’t know, not be this good the whole season. Like, yeah, the shooting is what it is. They’re making it work. Duncan Robinson’s given them everything they will take as a shooter. Jaden Ivy. We’ll see when he comes back, but they are towards the bottom of the league and everything. Three-pointers, attempts, percentage, makes it again. Kade also just has to take on a lot of stuff here like Dennis Jenkins given them what he’s given them as a creator has been massive. But I do think they’re just a better team. Anyway, questions. There’s like three. One, what does Ivy look like? Two, do they make a trade? Three, I don’t know, can they make the finals? As far as Ivy, the last time we saw him was technically he played 14 minutes in preseason, but we’re going to skip that one. He had a nice fivegame stretch before he went down last season where the Pistons actually won four of those five games and then it felt like I don’t know two weeks after that everybody’s like whoa the Pistons are good. So I feel like Ivy’s stuff went a little unnoticed at least for non-Pistons fans and I feel like a lot of the stuff he made in those games is like the perfect thing here where he’s getting corner threes created for him by Cade. He’s occasionally a second screener in an action with Cade. he’s running some empty side two-man actions with Duran or he’ll even have a play where like he just beats Westbrook in a Nuggets game just off the dribble on a play that’s otherwise going nowhere. So for as good as it’s going, they do still need his skill set and hopefully it fits in well and you’re going to have to have some lineup conversations but whatever that’s fine. That’s a good problem to have good players on your team. Next will they make a trade? Of course Markin is the most popular guy to imagine for them. Tobias has to be in the deal. And then you’re having convos about Ivy, Holland, possibly Levert’s 14 million, whatever. So Markin’s averaging 30 right now. He’s dropped 42 games in a row recently running any sort of offball action you want to imagine as a seven-footer. Exact type of skill set the Pistons need. I don’t think he averages 30 on the Pistons. It’s Danny A, so we assume he’s going to ask for more picks than you’re comfortable giving him. And when you look at recent trades, I think the best example we’ve seen of a team getting a really good player is the Seakum deal. The Pacers, they dealt two guys who didn’t really matter. Bruce Brown and Jordan Dora. Apologies to Bruce. And three firsts. If I’m the Pistons, I’m trying to replicate that for Markin. And I don’t know if that’s possible given who’s the other guy on the phone. And you look at the amount of picks that moved in the Desmond Bane and male trades as well as like Markin, he’s playing really really well right now. And also, just contractually speaking, it’s not possible for the Pistons to uh just throw a bunch of whatever money-wise in the deal. Like, they’re going to have to move somebody who actually matters. Unless Carris Levert’s money gets you there, I guess. Apologies to Caris, but then you’d have to probably load up on more picks. Who knows if it happens. What I will say is in the meantime, the Ivy questions the biggest thing. I’ve seen Jazz fans bring up a SAR. That’s not happening. Last question, how far can they go right now? Garland. He played one game with the Cavs and now I don’t know the Knicks. I just assume at some point the Knicks are going to go on like a sevename win streak. They just got Brunson back. That loss that they had to Miami. I mean Deuce played well in the game overall. He had two really bad shots where you’re just like man that ball didn’t even touch Cat’s hands. Brunson’s out. Like I guess that’s just going to happen sometimes. Anyway, I think right now the Pistons, if they made no moves and let’s say Ivy fits in well, I think they would be equipped to be extremely annoying to the Knicks and the Cavs in a playoff series where they just grind it to at the least a game six. And once you get that close, I mean, hey, anything could happen. I mean, we saw in that Knicks series, they were up in game one and then they just vomited all over themselves and just kept losing the ball in MSG and the Knicks stole game one. And that if it wasn’t for that infamous no call I believe it was at the end of one of those games in Detroit like and Stew was hurt in that series after game one I believe like yeah they lost because they weren’t good enough but they weren’t that far away either. And then as far as the Raptors who are the two seed right now so we cannot ignore them. A Pistons Raptors playoff series sounds like a series that has like three different double overtime games. Anyway, we’re 15 games in. I’m already trying to project playoff series and we got a long way to go but they’re good. This is the best Pistons team in like nearly 20 years.

they’re the 1 seed in the east
#cadecunningham #nba #detroitpistons