Pistons vs Los Angeles Lakers

Game Breakdown

*Special Situations*

• Pretty carefree start to the game from both teams, this may end up coming down to the first team to really lock in

• Get down 8 early and make the subs of Beasley-Ausar for Ivey-THJ, can they immediately get back in this and set a tone

  • Careless Duren TO luckily ends in a transition TO from the Lakers

  • Things continue to go back and forth right now with careless TOs and defensive mistakes

  • Pistons actually go down 10 after a Vincent 3PM but Cade answers with mid range pull up

  • Follow this with a couple 3PMs from Beasley and Fontecchio and they have at least found their offensive flow it seems

  • Teams just really trading buckets at this point, Pistons stopped the momentum but wouldn’t say they flipped it

  • WITH THAT SAID…..Pistons end up taking the lead before the quarter is over

    • Ivey floater, Holland layup, Fontecchio off the glass 3PM

    • Worth noting: JB did NOT go the normal offense/defense sub here at the end of the quarter like we often see with Cade (and Harris but I am not as worried about him in this situation)

  • *They also score at the end of the 3rd quarter on an Ivey drive and finish where JB again chose NOT to put Cade back in the game*

• I am not trying to “hate” on Tobias Harris but I don’t understand why teams double him in the mid post

  • At this point I would look at this Pistons team and go…..

  • It keeps the ball OUT of Cade’s hands, it keeps the ball out of Ivey’s hands, it doesn’t allow for a Beasley 3PA, it slows the game down and keeps everyone else on their team out of a flow…..okay, do that as many times as you want

• GREAT HAND COMBINATION FROM DUREN-HARRIS IN THE PNR

  • Truly go watch at 4:00 2nd quarter

  • Duren initial hand placement FORCES Reaves to have to ball fake to move his hands….this .5 second delay then allows Harris to get back in the play and get his hands involve only get the steal

  • And this leads directly to 2 points in transition

• The energy level CHANGES when Ausar-Reed come on the floor (Beasley to an extent but that’s mostly the offensive shooting)

  • They absolutely disrupt the opposing team offensively, sometimes they get out of position doing it and there are offensive limitations but the number of deflections, steals, blocks, etc. definitely increases when they are in

• 10 points lead with 8 minutes to go in the game…can you extend? Or are you going to let them stay around have to win it late?

  • 11 point lead after Reed gets in AD head and draws the technical foul

  • Get a miss BUT give up an OREB and Reaves 3PM

    • *Remember this play if Detroit loses the game*

    • Fontecchio missed the box out on LBJ

  • Rough offensive possession ends with Beasley contested 3P miss off the dribble

  • LBJ miss but OREB and gets to the FT line

  • Cade foul/TO on DHO illegal screen

  • Cade with a really nice stop on LBJ but THJ missed 3PA

  • Another stop BUT Harris mid post bucket….I guess this is why you double him!!!

  • Cade with a SICK dribble move and tough finish through LBJ to push it back to 10

• OFFENSE has lost it’s flow after it looked like they had this thing locked up, defense is going to have to come up with a stop or two to put it away

  • DUREN with a great rim protection on Christie (that’s 1!)

  • DUREN gives up drive to LBJ playing at the level

    • This is the counter to what I bring up below in the defensive portion

  • Cade gives up drive to LBJ, Duren helps, passes to AD but Harris and Cade dig in on the attempt and AD misses (that’s 2!)

    • JB challenges account for at least 3? (idk how many FTs we want to say AD makes here, 77% on the season) points in this game

  • Cade gets hung up on screen and is late but LBJ misses 3PA (that’s 3!)

  • Not sure how much this was great Detroit defense BUT they got it done

Pistons

• Cade, Ivey, THJ, Harris, Duren

  • OFFENSE

    • First action of the game for Cade starting OFF THE BALL and I love it (gets to the FT LINE)....it ends up being a middle of the court zoom action with THJ and Harris strong side, Duren rolling and Ivey on the weak side to take advantage if his man tags

    • Another OFF THE BALL action for Cade ATO, doesn’t convert this one

  • DEFENSE

    • Again, this awful start hasn’t been solely on Duren (or even THJ) but the unit as a whole just doesn’t make the offense uncomfortable

      • Harris easy post position to Rui, Cade backdoor to Christie, collectively they just don’t set the tone ON THIS END to start games

      • The tradeoff is starting a lineup that might BUT then we could be saying the same things about the other end

    • I LOVE them switching up their ball screen coverages!!!

      • You can’t exclusively go away from drop BUT playing at the level, blitzing, etc. just forces the offense out of an easy flow and decision making process

      • It also FORCES your bigs to be at the screen early, communicate, be active, move their feet, etc. just overall forces even more engagement and activity

    • I feel like they have forced AD to be a jump shooter for the majority of this game and that is a win in my book against him

    • And while they have given up points and good looks, we HAVE seen them be extremely disruptive in this game

      • Honestly, they have forced quite a few TOs in the last 3 games now

• DUREN vs AD is going to be a great test for him in this game

  • Forcing him into jump shots so far, this is the strategy I would take

  • This is another 1st half where I don’t think he has been spectacular but I do think he has played fine….particularly, I think he has played solid vs AD and in ball screen coverage

  • He actually has a really nice defensive possession to start the 2nd half where he avoids a screen, stays in good position and eventually forces AD into a contested mid range jumper that is missed

  • Another one a couple minutes later hard hedging and forcing the TO on LBJ

• CADE gets to HIS SPOT every single time out of the mid post isolation, it truly comes down to him converting now

  • And then once he is so good at it that teams decide they have to double it will be about making the right decisions out of it and teammates paying it off

  • Legit see this on the next possession when Rui doubles off THJ and THJ knocks down the C&S 3P

  • The defense from him has been ROUGH to start the game

    • Not easy but gives up wide open dunk to LBJ on the mid post and then the worse possession is the backdoor he gives up to Christie

    • Has another really bad possession to end the 1st half

    • Another one in the 2nd half….the defense has straight up not been good so far in this game

  • His first TO of the game is just another example of him undervaluing how good these NBA guys are defensively

    • Of course Christie is going to come aggressively with the double and have active hands doubling at the ball…at this point he has to understand the disruption ability of players in the league and start countering it with a sense of urgency to protect the basketball

  • I absolutely love listening to opposition broadcasts RAVE about how good Cade Cunningham is

  • Going to his left, stick that right foot in the ground and stepback in the mid range looks like yet another move where he feels very, very comfortable every time he gets to it

  • Very inefficient game from him from the floor but I do think he took the right shots for the most part

• AUSAR definitely changes the energy of the game when he enters

  • On ball rep ATO that allows him to attack and score, love it

  • He has some real growth with his off the ball screen navigation to be the elite defender many of us talk about

    • 4:45 2nd quarter I guess is more of DHO but a little slow recognizing it causes him to be late, runs into the screen and Knecht gets the mid range pull up over the Duren contest

  • The 8 feet fade away!!! Yes sir!!

    • LIVE in this area with the jumper young man

• BEASLEY CONTINUES to make shot after shot after shot

  • Even does a little off the bounce in this game….don’t always love when he starts doing this too much BUT with the way teams have to defend him at the 3P line he does have to show it a little

  • I absolutely LOVE this engagement on the sideline….you can’t tell me this guy isn’t fully engaged with this team (can we please resign him this offseason?)

• IVEY floater HAS to be something he continues to grow

  • Man, if he can really start making teams pay for going under on screens….

  • Has reverted back to his rookie year habit of running into screens and just “dying” on them instead of immediately getting off of them and giving that second effort to get back

    • Not ALWAYS but have noticed it a little more the past handful of games

  • Incredible process 2:00 2nd quarter

    • Comes off the screen, doesn’t settle, probes, quickly jails the defender and then snakes back into the middle of the lane for the little floater

    • Follows this up with a turned down 3PA to one more to Beasley for the 3PM

  • He has seen the inconsistency even in this 1st half but I would say we saw more of the good than the bad

  • Thought it had been a slow start to the 2nd half for him and didn’t love the process of the transition 3PA mid quarter BUT he knocks it down

    • The jump shooting improvement at this point in the season has been so impressive

  • He has scored the basketball extremely well in that 3-10 feet area

    • He is at 41% from this area on the season

• HOLLAND with a SICK left hand finish attacking Rui in early offense

  • Left foot, left hand HIGH off the glass….really nice skill on this one

  • Little overzealous with the 3PA off the dribble

    • I am cool with him taking the ones off the catch but probably don’t need these attempts right now

  • BUT the confidence never wavers with this kid as he has an awesome breakdown of the defense and LEFT hand reverse finish on the very next possession

  • Forces a TO by just picking up the ball FC

• FONTECCHIO with a heck of a start for him

  • Throws in an interesting wrinkle with is production by setting these screens and slipping to the rim for catch and finish (or fouled)

  • I am okay with these, just as long as they are playtypes that keep him from dribbling too much and having to make passing reads

  • 1:55 3rd quarter is all you need to show him

    • SHOOT THE BALL

    • OR

    • SHOT FAKE, 1 DRIBBLE, SIDE STEP, SHOOT THE BALL

    • OR

    • PASS IT

    • BUT

    • Don’t dribble into traffic in the lane and try to make a second side passing read

    • And fwiw, I don’t think they need him to be able to do this…ALL they need him to do is C&S (“play finish”), grab some rebounds and be a big/physical neutral wing/forward defender

• REED continues to show his defensive disruption on these ball screens with how active his hands are and they are leading directly to transition points in a lot of the situations

  • Does it again immediately upon entering the game in the 3rd quarter

  • And then gets a couple blocks that ALSO lead to transition points

  • And then an awesome recovery steal

• HARRIS hands on the defensive end are so elite

  • Out of everything, they just need him to find that 3P shooting stroke

Lakers

• Reaves, Christie, Rui, LBJ, AD

  • Lakers run almost the exact same action for their first play of the game and Reaves gets a little floater

  • Not a high turnover team but they have been very careless with the ball in the 1st quarter

  • Love the Spain PnR action with LBJ - AD and Reaves filling to the top

• LBJ off the ball defense is rough

  • Rui double on a Cade mid post isolation and LBJ just stands in the middle of the lane and doesn’t even think about rotating to THJ who is a guy you would normally want to run off a wide open C&S 3PA

  • He honestly has not had much of a presence here in the 1st half

    • Still puts up a triple double and making some very impactful plays down the stretch

  • Still is a handful when he makes up his mind that he is getting downhill to the rim

  • Gives up a straight line drive and dunk to Cade

• RUI with a great baseline duck in post up and finish

  • Has looked really comfortable working along the baseline early in the game

  • He has been ELITE working the baseline

• REAVES has done a nice job pressuring the defense off the dribble

  • Little loose with the handle here in the 2nd quarter and leading to TOs

    • This hasn’t been an issue for him most of the year but it has been BAD in this game

  • Has done a nice job with his finishing in the mid range area

  • Does seem like they have tried to actively make him a major part of the offense

• REDDISH has made his presence felt defensively with some very active hands

• KNECHT shows where he is at in one sequence

  • Big time C&S 3PM on one end and then gives up the drive and bucket on the ensuing defensive possession

• AD and the Lakers are 20th in DRTG and it’s definitely not his fault at the forefront but he has to be ELITE to make up for all of the other issues

  • He has an AWESOME rotation block on a Harris mid post isolation that exemplifies how impactful he can be

  • And there is no denying that offensive players do feel his presence when they drive which changes their calculation of what they are going to do

• CHRISTIE has put together a really nice offensive game for them, this is what they need from him if they are going to start him as their perimeter defensive player

  • Make shots from the corner, attack a closeout when it presents itself

  • That’s a LEGIT no dip C&S 3PM here late in the 4th

• VINCENT has found his shooting touch in this game

• DLO has been a complete non factor, or at least not a factor in a positive way