After a thrilling Home Opener victory over the Boston Celtics, the Pistons welcome the Cleveland Cavaliers to Detroit for a showdown between two teams that hope to be battling it out for the Central Division crown this season. It will also be both team\u2019s first back-to-back of the season.<\/p>\n
Yesterday\u2019s win over the Boston Celtics wasn\u2019t a perfect game, as the Pistons found themselves down double-digits early once again. They were able to settle things down and pretty much dominate the final 3 quarters of the game, but the Celtics made a late push to keep things close down the stretch.<\/p>\n
The key for the Pistons against a very good Cavaliers team will be to not get off to a poor start offensively like they have in two of their first three games this season. The lack of any other ball-handlers outside of Cade Cunningham and Ausar Thompson is very present when the Pistons have to run an organized halfcourt offense.<\/p>\n
If the Pistons get off to a poor start again, the Cavaliers are simply too good of a team on both ends for them to forge a comeback like they did against the Celtics yesterday or the Bulls on opening night.<\/p>\n
This game is also technically a National TV game since it will be broadcast on Peacock.<\/p>\n
Where: Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, MI
When: Monday, October 27 at 7 pm EST
Watch: Peacock
Odds: Cavaliers (-2.5)<\/p>\n
I touched on it briefly above, but the story of the Pistons season so far has been slow starts offensively. They look like a team that was built around having Jaden Ivey as a secondary ballhandler in the starting lineup and the primary backup ballhandler. Ausar Thompson has done a great job filling in as the de facto backup point guard, but nobody else on the team has proven capable of creating offense or getting the team setup in their offense in the halfcourt and it has led to some brutal starts on offense.<\/p>\n
The momentum of every game so far has swung when the Pistons are able to get stops on defense and get out and run without having to worry about getting their offense set. Guys like Ron Holland, Ausar Thompson, JaVonte Green, and Isaiah Stewart have proven invaluable at doing that so far this season.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think there is any solution to the Pistons offensive issues at this time given that Jaden Ivey, Marcus Sasser, and Caris LeVert are all out, but the main sticking point is the absence of Ivey for at least the first month of the season.<\/p>\n
Luckily for the Pistons, the Cavaliers don\u2019t quite have the backcourt defenders to throw at the Pistons like the Celtics had, but they are still a very good defensive team and make up for the lack of backcourt defense with an elite frontcourt defense.<\/p>\n
That frontcourt defense is led by Evan Mobley, who is starting to put some things together on offense the last couple years. He likely will never be able to carry a high-level offense, but he is a key offensive piece playing off of Donovan Mitchell, who has taken on a huge offensive load with Darius Garland still recovering from offseason surgery.<\/p>\n
The Pistons are likely going to have some issues going inside and scoring, which keyed their defeat of the Boston Celtics yesterday. They shot 11 less 3s than the Celtics did and were rewarded with 12 more free throws as a result. The Celtics current rosters doesn\u2019t have near the size that the Cavaliers do. The Boston Celtics were giving rotation minutes to Luka Garza in the frontcourt just to give them another body with size.<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers have Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen in the frontcourt and also bring Larry Nance Jr. and Dean Wade off the bench, who are both solid defenders in their own right. If the Pistons want to win this game, they are likely going to have to keep things outside more and attack the weaker links on defense like Sam Merrill and Donovan Mitchell.<\/p>\n
This could be a good chance for a bit of a Cade Cunningham bounce-back. I wouldn\u2019t say he has been bad this season, but he has struggled a bit as teams put all of their focus on him due to the lack of other offensive threats on the team. It has led to some bad turnovers and inefficient shooting, which has been a bit of a shock after the Preseason Cade put together.<\/p>\n
With a weaker Cavaliers backcourt defensively, hopefully he can focus more on making good decisions with the ball and taking better shots since he won\u2019t have 2 defenders hounding him all game.<\/p>\n
As has been the case all season, turning defense into offense will be key for the Pistons to win. If they can get to the basket while the defense is scrambled, they will not have to deal with both Allen and Mobley at the rim.<\/p>\n
This will be a tough game for the Pistons, but facing a Cavaliers team with no Darius Garland does make the task a bit easier.<\/p>\n
Detroit Pistons (2-1): Cade Cunningham, Duncan Robinson, Ausar Thompson, Tobias Harris, Jalen Duren<\/p>\n
Cleveland Cavaliers (2-1): Donovan Mitchell, Sam Merrill, DeAndre Hunter, Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen<\/p>\n
Who have you been most impressed with through the first 3 games of the season?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a thrilling Home Opener victory over the Boston Celtics, the Pistons welcome the Cleveland Cavaliers to Detroit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773],"tags":[7,296,188,52275,3860,6,297,53269],"class_list":{"0":"post-370882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-pistons","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-pistons","11":"tag-detroit-pistons-game-day","12":"tag-detroitpistons","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-pistons","15":"tag-pistons-previews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115447069732853467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}