Nekias Duncan and Steve Jones Jr. discuss Detroit’s season long losing streak and whether it’s a real sign of concern for the Eastern Conference leaders. Check out the full conversation on “The Dunker Spot and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
They are on, they are on, as you alluded to, it’s not like they haven’t lost all that often, and they certainly haven’t strung together losses all that often.
They have lost four straight games.
Lost at Cleveland, at San Antonio.
They lost to Brooklyn at home, in which they had a big lead and lost it.
And then on the second leg of that back-to-back, they lost to Miami Heat.
No Cade or Osar in the Brooklyn game, no Osar in the Miami game.
We’re waiting on Osar Thompson to come back.
He is very important to what the Detroit Pistons do defensively.
He has had an all-defense caliber year, and even as he has some offensive questions that we talked about with Cuca Hill on a recent episode of Dunker Spot, like the offensive rebounding’s still important, the cutting’s still important, the transition attacks are still important, so et cetera.
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Missing Osar is a big deal.
Just wanted to sprinkle that in.
But they’ve lost four straight.
They are five and five since the All-Star break, where they have been pretty much middle of the pack in everything since then.
So over those 10 games, seventeenth in offense, fifteenth in defense, fifteenth in net rating per NBA.com.
And so Steve, the question I’ll pose to you is, is this just a blip for the Detroit Pistons?
Late in the season, they faced adversity, they’re ultimately gonna be fine.
Or has there been anything during this stretch of games where you’re like, “Ooh, they may need to solve this or this could be a bigger deal”?
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You know what I’m gonna say.
It’s, it’s, it’s the adversity of the season.
You know?
I, I’ll, I don’t wanna tell the full story, but I was in Brooklyn, 10 years ago.
Good Lord, long time ago.
And the Brooklyn Nets were not having a good year on, on my way out, and we played the Cleveland Cavaliers in March with LeBron James, and we beat them in the Barclays Center.
And I sat in the back and I was like, “Who says this team is a contender?”
Well, they went and made history and made a historic comeback to four is one championship that year.
So yeah, things happen in March.
You gotta deal with it.
This is the adversity of the season.
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I think the biggest thing when it comes to Detroit, right, the, the defense hasn’t been at the same level.
you could say they’re five and five post All-Star break.
They beat New York.
Mm-hmm.
They beat Cleveland.
They beat Orlando.
Mm-hmm.
So they’ve had some good positive performances, post All-Star break.
They also have had to deal with Victor Wembanyama twice.
That’s not exactly fun, specifically for that team.
Uh- Sure Cleveland got their revenge back on them.
Brooklyn, guys were out, but they were end up, you know, they ended up putting themselves in a position to win.
They ended up losing that one, and Miami is, is scorching hot.
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The defense, it’s just a reminder, I think their defense has to play at a certain level for them to have a certain amount of success.
Like, that’s a non-negotiable I think for the Pistons.
You have to be able to defend and guard.
You can’t give up 120 a night, and you, you can’t let up on that end, or you just don’t have the wiggle room.
So I think for me- Mm-hmm that’s the biggest reminder.
And then offensively, you just gotta maintain your sharpness, maintain your attack, get the ball in the paint, move and attack defenses.
That’s the biggest thing for me