{"id":547305,"date":"2026-01-19T19:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T19:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/547305\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T19:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T19:30:19","slug":"pistons-notes-keys-to-success-holland-grades-stewart-duren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/547305\/","title":{"rendered":"Pistons Notes: Keys To Success, Holland, Grades, Stewart, Duren"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n By Dana Gauruder<\/a> |
\n at January 19, 2026 12:31 pm <\/p>\n

The Pistons will reach the midway point of the season on Monday with a solid grip on the top spot in the Eastern Conference. How have they achieved that status? In a subscriber-only story, The Detroit Free Press\u2019 Omari Sankofa II<\/a> breaks down three key elements to their success.<\/p>\n

Sankofa highlights the Pistons\u2019 defensive rating, points in the paint, and efficiency rating \u2014 they rank second in the league in each of those categories. Sankofa adds that the Pistons have won at least 30 of their first 40 games for just the second time in franchise history (along with 2005\/06) and are on pace to win more than 60 games.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more on the Pistons:<\/p>\n

Key reserve and 2024 lottery pick Ron Holland<\/a> is questionable to play in Monday\u2019s showdown with the Celtics due to an illness, Hunter Patterson of The Athletic tweets<\/a>. The Pistons and Celtics hold the top two spots in the Eastern Conference. Holland is averaging 8.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 1.4 steals in 21.1 minutes per game this season.
\nAs you might expect, Sanfoka<\/a> gives out a lot of high midterm grades to the members of the roster. Isaiah Stewart<\/a> and Daniss Jenkins<\/a> got As, while Jalen Duren<\/a> earned an A-minus. What about Cade Cunningham<\/a>? He gets a B-plus \u2014 his subpar three-point shooting dragged down his grade \u2014 and no one got anything lower than a B-minus.
\nSpeaking of Stewart and Duren, \u201cDawg Pound\u201d is now painted above their lockers in Detroit\u2019s home arena. Why? The Athletic\u2019s Fred Katz<\/a> interviews the big man duo to explain the mentality they take on and off the court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Dana Gauruder | at January 19, 2026 12:31 pm The Pistons will reach the midway point of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773],"tags":[7,909,6101,296,188,3860,1016,912,6,297,9002],"class_list":{"0":"post-547305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-pistons","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cade-cunningham","10":"tag-daniss-jenkins","11":"tag-detroit","12":"tag-detroit-pistons","13":"tag-detroitpistons","14":"tag-isaiah-stewart","15":"tag-jalen-duren","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-pistons","18":"tag-ron-holland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115923427228643627","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547305","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=547305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}