Driving to the Basket: A Detroit Pistons Podcast - Episode 7: What’s wrong with the Pistons and what can be done? Plus new podcast name and co-host.

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

This episode introduces the podcast's new name and co-host, and discusses the issues that ail the struggling Pistons.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, everybody. My name is Mike. Welcome back to another episode of the newly renamed Driving to the Basket podcast. I'm joined today by my friend and new co-host, Tommy. Why don't you say hello? How's it going, everybody? So we are just going to launch straight into things and talk about tonight's game against the Chicago Bulls, which did not end well. Now, the Pistons, of course, as we know, had really been struggling for some time now. We had an unprecedented amount of rest, really, the Pistons. have had a really rapid fire schedule since the season began. They had four days off. The last game was Friday's loss against the Hornets. And I think the idea, or at least the hope of a lot of people was that, you know, they'd use this time to, you know, get rid of some of the, not really get rid of,

but to smooth out some of the kinks, put it that way, especially in the defense, which had just been absolutely terrible, of the Pistons also been turnover machines that have been a huge problem. The offense, kind of against all expectations with Blake Griffin largely out of the lineup, had done pretty well, but the defense was just awful, and the pistons were just giving up the tremendous number of points on turnovers. So the thought was, you know, you've got a few days off. Dwayne Casey is a capable defensive coach, and hopefully we can get things on board here.

And, you know, hopefully it's another few days off where, you know, Blake can reintegrate himself into the team or whatever else. Now, of course, the game is a disaster. The Pistons just couldn't get things going. And this was against the Chicago Bulls team that isn't particularly good, that was missing Otto Porter. That, you know, one thing that went wrong was just three-point shooting, part of which was that Langston, the microwave Galloway.

Of course, the microwave reference to Pistons great, Finney Johnson. He just didn't get it going. Kinnark didn't shoot, but also the Pistons just still couldn't defend. And the offense looked like crap. Blake was terrible. And Andre Drummond had a really bad game, too. So this was a game that Pistons really couldn't afford to drop.

They're now 4 and 10, and so they've got a very difficult schedule coming up. So I kick it over Tommy. Why don't you tell us your take on what happened tonight? Yeah, the biggest thing for me was Blake Riven didn't look right. The hope was after 10 games initially to start the season, he was out. And he said about six or seven games through that, he was. was saying he was fine and the only reason that he was out was because the trainers wanted to be extra cautious with him. But today he just didn't look like the Blake Griffin of last year. And

that's really concerning for me. He was slow. He was passing up a lot of shots. He lost his confidence on the three ball and you just can't expect the pistons to do anything really like they did last year without Blake Griffin carrying the way he did last year. It's just a matter of he was doing everything for the Pistons last year. Casey relied on him heavily for the ISO ball. And while that's not ideal, it was what the Pistons relied on. And without that, the team just struggled tremendously tonight with him on the floor. They didn't seem to iron out any of those kinks that you mentioned.

They just didn't look like they had ever played together. And then when he was off the floor, the Pistons immediately, they were moving the ball a lot more. They were getting some more open shots. Andro Drummond was playing a little bit of the facilitator role, and that's fun to watch. But for a team that's paying so much money to Andre Drummond and Blake Griffin, you want them to be able to work together and have complementary skills and be able to play off of each other. And it seems like not more than ever, they aren't able to do that. And that's a huge problem for the Pistons. Yeah, I completely agreed. Griffin did not at all look tonight, nor as he looked since he's been back in the lineup like the Blake we've seen. We saw last season, the Blake we saw it for really the rest of his career. And the Blake whom, of course, you know, the brain trust, the organization, the old brain trust, it's certainly the owner, Tom Gores, thought would, you know, for better or worse, I think everybody, a lot of people could argue for worse rather than better, thought would really turn around the fortunes of the French.

He looked terrible tonight. He has looked terrible since he got back. He's done more or less nothing right. You know, the only thing he did nicely tonight was rebound. I mean, that's helpful, of course. This team has, you know, is one of the worst rebounding teams in the league. And, you know, it has had basically no capable rebounders behind Andre Drummond's. So that's about all he did, right.

Obviously, you don't have Blake Griffin out there to be a secondary rebounder. you have him out there to make plays for himself and for others. And for the entirety of the game, he was either just screwing up on the way to the basket, getting it stripped. He turned over the ball a ton of times, making bad passes. He finally sank his first three-pointer of the season, but the rest of them were all pretty brickish. And like you said, the offense couldn't operate his unit with him on the floor. His defense was also really bad. Mike, I think there was one possession when he was guarding Harrison,

and he literally left him up at the three-point line, the entire possession. And, I mean, at no point was Blake actually guarding him. He was standing about four feet from the three-per, excuse me, probably about six feet from the three-point line. And eventually Harrison got the ball and sank a wide-open three. Blake Griffin is never going to get, he's just not quick enough to make up that six feet before somebody can take a shot. But overall, he was bad on defense.

He does not look like himself. He looks real slow. He looks pretty hobbled. But to repeat, it's like you said, the offense just doesn't operate well with him on the floor. I think a lot of that falls at the feet of Dwayne Casey. Like you said, the offense relied tremendously last season upon Blake being able to create something out of nothing.

And I would say that, you know, one or two Blake Griffin games less. that the business had had. If he had been out just those one or two more games, and they were very fortunate with his health last season. I think that caused some people to possibly forget that one of the major question marks about the trade was his health. So they're very lucky to have that last season. But, you know, one or two more missed games,

very likely would have met the Pistons out of the playoffs. And, you know, say what you will about that first round annihilation at the hands of the bucks. the number 14 pick, you know, which is not a likelihood, but you're going to get if you have the 14th, 14th worst team in the league is not much better, if at all, assuming you don't hit the jackpot in the lottery, which very few teams do from that position.

So, I mean, I got to say a lot of it, a lot of tonight falls, at least the offense with Griffin on the floor, falls at the feet of Dwayne Casey, whom I'll have plenty to talk about later. I just don't think he really has the imagination or really the inclination to run an offense around Griffin rather than just trying to run ISO offense through him throughout his entire time with the Raptors, except for that final season before he was fired in which Nick Nurse was running the offense.

But when, in Dwayne Casey ran the offense in Toronto, whenever he could, he resorted ISO ball. And you saw that in the Charlotte game. Luke Kinnard didn't get any go in the second half. because Casey just resorted ice football with Blake and Derek Rose didn't work. But, yeah, I would say the only person tonight who had a particularly good game was Christian Wood, and that was actually after he finally got in the floor. Yep, it's good to see him finally.

Yeah, I agree. It was pretty infuriating to see Thon Maker go out on the floor. I think into tonight, Thon was about his on-off differential was, I think, around minus eight, Christian Woods was about plus 6.5. And nonetheless, Dwayne Casey was throwing Thonmaker out in the floor. He amended his ways in the second half, but, you know, good grief. Yeah. I understand that Casey is like a defensive-minded coach.

And for a guy who blows as many, you know, defensive assignments as Christian Wood, I understand that for Casey, that's very hard to watch. but for overall impact, Thon does nothing on really either end of the floor. He's just long. That's about it. Christian Wood, at least he gives you something on offense.

He's fighting for rebounds very hard, and he was getting a lot of good rebounds with two or three guys, you know, surrounding him. So in terms of just overall production, I can't imagine a scenario where Christian Wood isn't the guy who's coming off the bench instead of Thonmaker. That's just a huge question mark to me. Like, why does Casey insist on giving Thawn those minutes?

And it seems like only when things go catastrophically wrong do we get any change. I don't understand it. Yeah, I completely agree. And yeah, just as a note to people, I'm still kind of tinkering with my mic here trying to find an equal volume between Tommy and I. So if we sound like we're of a slightly different volume, apologies for that. But in any event, yeah, I completely agree when it comes to the question of why the hell is Donmaker getting any minutes. Yeah, Christian Wood makes his share of defensive errors. Though tonight, I think he came out and was very, very conscientious about not screwing up defensively at all.

He made one kind of borderline mistake that led to an open three-pointer for the Bulls. This was when the game was well out of hand, late in the fourth. And beyond that, I think he was extra, extra attentive to not blowing any assignments. He did pretty well, actually, at defending the rim. And even against, you know, even at times when he was matched up against, geez, who is the backup center for the Bulls? I don't remember his name, but, but Will was giving up quite a bit of size, and he still did pretty well.

And on the offensive end, you know, the guys got talent. He's, you know, he's maybe not the most reliable three-point shooter, but he's pretty darn good going downhill. He's a good score around the basket. He's super, athletic, and I think he's a guy you can train and do a passable defender. It's considerably easier, I would say. It's like Scotty Bowman, who's the old coach of the Red Wings, a legendary coach,

arguably the best of all time. I would say it's between he and Toe Blake, but I digress. It would say you can't make your grinder score, but you can make your scorer's grind. There's something along those lines, basically. you can probably teach a score to play better defense. You can't teach a guy who can't score, a good defender who can't score to be a good score. It's unlikely to happen.

It's just a matter of skill versus effort. Like somebody who just does not have that defensive IQ can hopefully through just an issue of effort become a better defender, like Reggie Jackson in his first season, first full season of the Pistons. Now, Thon Maker, I mean, this leaves aside the fact that Thon Maker is a bad defender. I mean, that's the really irritating thing here.

He's a horrible on-ball defender. I would say he maybe makes, that tonight it wasn't the case. I would say usually he makes less off-ball errors than would. Tonight, that wasn't the case. And Thon certainly makes his share of off-ball errors, but on the ball, he's a terrible defender, and he sucks at everything else. He's a horrible remander.

He has no feel for scoring. And he got can barely screen. Yeah, exactly. People just push him out of the way. You can't impose his will on anybody, and he just gets moved around. If I was him, his only role really in the NBA long term is a guy who could shoot the three ball. That's about it. I mean, he can't play backup center, just not long term.

Well, this assumes that he's ever able to convert the three at a reliable percentage. I mean, one thing that's questionable. I know I agree with you. It's unlikely, but that's like his best bet. He's looked just terrible. People are like kind of banking on his potential at this point. He needs to show something more because you hear this in the off season a lot. You talk about, you hear about guys either gaining 15 pounds or losing 15 pounds.

I think Thon was one of those guys. They were talking about always putting on weight. It doesn't seem to have made a difference. and it's just it's just not good enough and you can't build her on that. Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, I will say, I mean, this is me ruefully laughing. I don't actually find this funny. You can say, yay, Casey isn't using him like he did last season,

where he legitimately seemed to think that Thon was a viable three-point shooter. Like down the stretch, like some of you probably remember that late. game, excuse me, late season game against the Hornets that would have been really nice for the Pistons to win and would have more or less locked them into the seven seed. And the Pistons lost because down the stretch, the offense died. And in part the offense died because, I mean, all right, Ish Smith, I'll say, you know, I think highly the guy as a player and as a teammate. So what I'm going to say now isn't meant to trash him as a player.

I mean, he has his shortcomings, but whatever the case. He and Thon had this horrible thing going between them, just awful, where they would run the pick and roll, which is like the worst pick and roll you can possibly think of, between two guys who were both bad away from the basket, and Thon is bad near the basket as well. So, I mean, Kinnar would be on the floor. Ish would take the pick and roll, you know, from Thon or for somebody else, and Thon would be a power forward a lot of the time, which is just he can't play power forward. you can barely play center.

You can't play power forward. And in that game, Thon took down the stretch when it was a close game, took three straight spot up threes and missed them all. I think four, actually. Three straight at one point, and then another one shortly there are a few possessions later. Casey legitimately had him spotting up for threes

instead of studying off-ball screens for Luke. And it's like, you've got to be kidding me. And that was actually a significant portion. I mean, sure, games are a lot throughout the entire game, but that never should have happened. And in the playoffs, Casey still had this idea that he could play Power Forward. And he started Power Forward in Game 1, and it was a disaster. So at least we don't have him being used as a spot-up shooter anymore.

But he sucks at everything. That's just the unfortunate truth of things. And at this point, it's like, sure, he was a risk worth taking at the price, which was negligible. Stanley Johnson. But I think for the organization at this point, it's like, unless you really think he's going to be able to improve, maybe you look back and you say, well, I wish we had just kept Stanley and just written out the season. And then we would have one more roster spot and space under the tax line for another veteran. Don't forget.

I mean, that almost, in a sense, that almost happened. Remember, Casey was pushing for Joe Johnson to take that 15th spot, not Christian Wood. I mean, imagine if that's where we were right now, where Thon was like our only backup center. At least Christian Wood is a pleasant surprise. like he's a high energy guy. He was a pretty good signing. I mean, especially at that price. But if Casey had gotten his way,

and it seemed like Casey was really pushing for Joe Johnson to get that spot, because we know that Casey likes his veterans. I mean, our center rotation being Andre Drummond and Thonmaker. If Andre had gone down at any point, and we would have had nothing. We would have had what Casey, not Casey, Maker, and then when Griffin came back, that would have been probably our center rotation.

Maybe call up, like a 10-day contract, like Dante Hall, that would have been it. I mean, we got lucky that Christian Wood kind of stumbled in and he ends up being passable, especially for a minimum contract. Yeah, I mean, I'll say this front office, I think, has been, I will say, an improvement on Stan Van Gundy, which isn't saying much.

I think they're thus far, they've been pretty mediocre, which is better than outright bad, which Stan Van Gundy was. And Stan Van Gundy was better than Dumars, who, for his last, how was it? Like six years was just terrible. But, yeah, I'll give them credit for pulling Christian wood off the scrap heap. Otherwise, no one is claiming him off waivers. Because, yeah, he has been a pleasant surprise. And, yeah, so the thing's definitely.

could have been a lot worse. I think we'd have seen Marquif playing a playing backup backup power for it in that situation. As for Dante Hall, it's like, oh, yeah, Dante Hall, it's like, oh, boy, if that guy ever sees significant time on this team, then things have taken a severely dire turn. You know, hard worker, by all means. But as we saw in Summer League, cannot score, like, full stop and just gets and gets roughed around in the paints, you know, kind of like Thon on defense. But, yeah, I'd say, I'd say Wood was basically the only bright spot tonight. And Casey's just got to pull the plug on Thon.

He's just awful with the exception of that game against Miami where he kind of almost stumbled into a good game. He got bailed out a lot on fouls and hit a couple threes, and you can never trust him to hit his threes. He's just been comically bad. And I do think it falls a little bit in the front office. But, you know, the Pistons haven't had a good backup center since Aaron Baines. They had to, like, Van Gundy went with Boban for some reason, thus basically denying the Pistons the ability to get more money to Baines.

And he kept Boma on the bench for two years, two and a half years. No, sorry, one and a half years. Yeah, no, that was a strange situation because he gave Bobin that money because he figured Bain was going to get a much bigger offer. And then I think he ended up getting, like, not a huge offer from the Celtics. and he played there. Smaller. That's what it was. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure that he would have done that here, but maybe he would have. And it's just a case of he was either undervalued by everybody else or overvalued by Stan Van Gundy. And now he's playing really well for the Sons and he added a three-point shot and all that. Yeah, absolutely. Baines has been great. He's playing his way into a pretty big contract. I'm not huge, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised if he's.

He got eight figures per season, you know, for next season, even as a backup. Because he's just been real good. But as we know, Boban just can't really play very well in the modern NBA. No. The guy can't defend the pick and roll, can't switch. He's just not fast enough. Yeah, he's too slow-footed, exactly. But, I mean, Van Gundy gave him a sizable salary.

Like, I remember reading that Boban wanted to stay in San Antonio because he really liked it there. And Greg Popovich is like, are you kidding? You know, go, go take the money. So, but they had to roll with Eric Moore on the next season, who is an acceptable defender, but a complete offensive zero. And then Zaza, who was, you know, better than the Thon, without a doubt, but still not really a guy you want to rely on and not a guy who can step into the starting lineup. And, I mean, you had, you could have taken a shot on somebody in the second round,

like, you know, with that number 30 pick, rather, like Bruno Fernando, for example. It wasn't great, but, you know, that's a guy. And whatever the case, I mean, I will certainly say that they were operating within, you know, limited boundaries. But like you said, it's a problem. If Drummond should go down, then Pistons are in a great deal of trouble, even more trouble than the room right now. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in those first 10 games, he was playing good defense. I mean, he looked like a defensive anchor.

And as bad as we've been on defense now, and then in that Charlotte game, he was kind of a sieve. You know, everybody was getting past him. Everybody was getting to the rim at will. But before that, I mean, he looked pretty good. That was probably peak drumming. That was the best I think I've ever seen him play for a stretch that long. Yeah, I would say, I'm not sure if I'd agree with being the first 10 games.

I would say that after the game against the Nets, I think, because his performance altogether has gone down quite a bit. But, you know, he did look great defensively, the first, in my opinion, those first seven games. And I've always, you know, I've thought for quite some time that he has this in him. It's just a matter of will versus, you know, versus ability. You know, it's not a matter of ability, rather. It's just a matter of will.

And the, you know, the discipline or just the intent, or whatever you want to call it, to just go out there and give a professional effort every night, which he was doing at the start of the season, even if he was still prone to bad habits, like those stupid isolations of his. But, and, you know, bringing the ball off the floor and turning it over, whatever else. On the whole, he was very good. He was playing fully engaged. And when he plays fully engaged, he can be a very good player,

even if his inability to stretch the floor still hurts quite a bit. He could still be a very good player. but I feel like ever since that game against the Nets, things have really gone downhill. Certainly as a score, his efficiency has been very bad. This has been very bad since then. And just his overall effort. And you know, I know you saw just a visible change in his manner

when Griffin came back against Minnesota. Yeah, that was to be expected. I know that when he was playing, pretty excellent ball to begin the year. Everybody was like, all right, it's contract year, German. And then the question I had for some people was, all right, what would you give him? And there were some people who were really like, we should give him the max. I mean, he's playing like a max player.

And it's like, you have to give him the max if he keeps this up. And I thought, no, I really didn't think this was going to continue when Blake came back. And it's even worse than I had anticipated. I mean, he just looks, it's just a polar opposite. It looks like the Andrejerman of the past, which is pretty disappointing because, you know, you see how good he can be. And then he just, when he doesn't get his touches, he resorts back to being very passive and low energy. And it's, it's disappointing. Yeah, I think it's incredibly frustrating.

And, you know, I've seen you say many times, and I agree completely that he and Blake are not a good fit to begin. with that you're never going to get the best out of both of them. I mean, in the first place, the Twin Towers model is really, really, really incredibly outdated in today's NBA. I mean, you know, there are some great centers in the league. You know, Joel M.B., Nicole Yolkich, Carol Anthony Towns, and Anthony Davis, who I will still maintain is a center, even if he really doesn't like playing center.

And then Gobert, of course. But, you know, those, none of those guys are playing as part of a duo with somebody who's also going to be spending most of this time down low. Whatever the case, I mean, we saw Drummond could do a pretty good job if he were at the center of the offense. It's never going to happen with Blake there. The pistons don't really have the space to allocate to, you know, a star on the perimeter. Of course, you're probably going to have to draft that guy. But also, yeah, if you want to get the most. out of Drummond. You've got to give him a much larger role. You've basically got to make him

numeral uno. And not only is he not going to get that with Blake. I mean, if Andre Drummond is your number one guy and is running your offense, your team is probably not going to get very far. Yeah, absolutely. It's unfortunate because it's really fun to watch him operate like that. He makes good passes. And when he's playing at maximum effort, he kind of covers other people's mistakes or other people's shortcomings. Like, one thing, You mentioned that his defense is not very good. And you said that it's mostly because of effort. And while I do agree that effort definitely plays a part of it,

the other thing is I think he gets caught in a lot of two-on-one situations. I think that hurts his numbers. The defense has been, it's designed to push people off the three-point line and have them drive inside. And what happens is drumming gets caught in a lot of two-on-one situations because the perimeter player's defender is, he's jumped past his man and he's trying to play catch-up and Andre has to cover his man in the paint and the guy who's running up on him towards the basket and making that decision,

it's very hard for him to stop both. But he was doing it better than I've ever seen him in those games without Griffin. When he was engaged, when he was getting his touches, he wasn't forcing anything. he was a pleasure to watch. And it's unfortunate that a team that's putting, what, like 60-something million into those two guys, they're best when they're not on the floor together. And I could talk at length about the role that Fit has in the NBA, but that could go on for a long time.

It's just this front office, they just don't seem to understand that. They've kind of got an old-school way of thinking, and I think that's really not good for an NBA team today. The league has just changed too much in the past, and we said five years for them to be considering this. You don't want to see that. Well, I mean, I would argue that, pardon me, I would argue that for this front office, I don't think they had really, I mean, I completely agree. with you on the question of fit. I don't think if this front office really had much choice in the matter. They kind of just inherited these contracts.

And I think that, you know, I think it's possibly even if they had tried to move Griffin or Drummond, even if they had been allowed to by Tom Gores, which I think is doubtful. I think prior to last season, they would have had trouble in moving Blake's contracts, probably. And, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think the only way to get out of that, they didn't build that, they didn't build the, it was Stan Van Gundy who brought on the drum and Griffin duo. I think there's really anything that's, in my opinion, this front office really could have done short of just trying to hit the reset button, which I think. I think they should.

Yeah. Well, we'll see what happens this season. If it keeps going this way, I don't really see any other way. But, you know, I think we can agree that the Pistons have an owner who is not really, uh, not really with it in terms of, you know, what needs to be done in the NBA. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The guy who said, I insist we compete every year. He's been the owner since 2011.

The Pistons are one of only two teams without a single playoff win since then. They have made the playoffs twice, and they have won zero playoff games. So whatever the case. So, I mean, I think we segue here into saying, you know, how did we get to this point where the Pistons are four and ten, despite at least in terms of opponents, if not frequency of games, a fairly forgiving schedule. Turnovers. Yeah, there is that.

I mean, I would say definitely turnovers. Of course, the fact that you don't have Blake obviously hurts. You know, Healthy Blake's kind of a game-changing presence. But even beyond that, turnovers, defense. I mean, you got to say at some point, you know, at what point is the coach really the problem? I mean, we're talking about a guy who is really defense-focused. Always says if you can't defend, you can't be on the floor, which is a, you know, is a philosophy that obviously does not really held up because he's played plenty of players with the pistons who can't defend. But, you know, that's always where he's excelled.

He was known as the guy who came up with the Maverick scheme to limit LeBron in the 2011 finals. Of course, LeBron, it could be argued, just kind of choked. He couldn't score in the fourth quarter in that series. But nonetheless, he's known as a pretty able defensive mind. And last season, he was able to coach the Pistons into a top 15, at least, defense, despite the fact that the team had next to nobody in terms of actual good defenders. Where he's always come up short is on offense and in terms of his lineups and in rotations and so on and so forth. But, I mean, the defense just isn't doing it.

The offense, I think, honestly, is punching above its weight. You had Derek Rose putting up stupid numbers to start out the season. And the Pistons very likely, well, certainly, rather, would have lost against that first game against the Pacers. you know, without him, but I mean, the Pistons lost several games in which he put up monster numbers. You've had Langston Galloway, who's been amazing. And if history is any indication, that's not going to, you know, that's not going to last. Because he's always, you know, throughout his time of the NBA, his seasons have gone hot, cold, hot cold, hot cold, you know, throughout the course of an individual season.

And you've got other guys shooting, you know, well above their, well above, well above, their percentages, their career percentages, rather, like Marquip Morris, for example, you know,

the Pistons have gone from one of the worst shooting teams last season to, you know, one of the best, at least, I think they've declined in that capacity

with the past few games, but they've been super efficient from the floor. I don't think that's something you keep, even without Griffin. It's like, I think they've been kind of

punching above their weight in that respect and that that can't be sustained. and if that goes away, then this team is really in deep shit, you know, pardon the language. And the team just looks completely disjointed. I mean, Casey's lineups have been crap, a lot of them, you know, at least in the early season. Like that starting lineup he fielded of Frazier, Brown, Snell, Morris, and Drummond, which was hopeless. absolutely and utterly hopeless and no coach in his right in mind

would have put those players out together because not a one of them could create offense and two of them can't shoot and Frasier as it turns out can't shoot either so three of them couldn't shoot and like other lineups of the sort he's put out that just fizzled because nobody can create offense

repeatedly putting Bruce Brown and Thun-Maker on the floor together and that's two guys who can't score and that's going to murder your offense stuff like that the game against the Hawks was winnable he had Thon Maker on the floor as power forward

for most of the second half next to Drummond it's like you can't that's two guys who can't score excuse me two guys can't shoot drumming can score but you guys

you don't have spacing especially if you got to have Brown or Fraser on there too forgot about Christian Wood after the game he's like oh yeah I'm paraphrasing and making this sound obnoxious

but it's like oh yeah I probably should have gotten that guy out there it's like yes, Duane, you can't score. He's a good, you know, he's a tremendously better score than, uh, than Thon Maker. And, uh, he was rested, which nobody else was, aside in Kyrie Thomas. And you just, maybe Mikhailio, I don't remember.

And you just kind of forgot about him. It's, it's this kind of Casey thing. It's like game three of the playoffs last season where Kinnard had done really well the first two games. And then in game three, just didn't get looks. And afterward, Casey's like, oh, yeah. you know, with regards to Griffin, who's getting the offense run through him, said, oh, yeah, probably should have worked harder to get Luke going.

And it's like, are you kidding me? This is your best shooter, and you forgot about him. And he did the same thing against the Hornets. He does the same thing numerous times last season. So, you know, I know this is a point in which we agree. The Casey's just not a very good coach. I think it's the kiss of death. Yeah.

It's not a new offense. the best shooters. Yeah, I think much like Stan Van Gundy, I mean, he does not get the best out of his players. And like on a nightmarishly disjointed roster like you had last season, that was a big problem. And it continues to be a big problem this season, even though the offense has generally been performing fairly well. But I think just the team is completely disjointed. It's not playing together very well at all. And, you know, given that you have mostly the same players you have last season, when do you point to Dwayne Casey and say, what's going wrong?

And why can't you do anything about it? absolutely yeah because it's like you're able to run a decent defense last season like the only capable defender you lost was stanley johnson and uh at times so many times throughout the season he was a terrible defender uh like in the last month or two before he uh he was traded in milwaukee he was just awful so it's it's like what's happening uh also i just have no faith in his ability to reintegrate blake griffin into the offense without actively taking away from other players instead of, like you saw Blake say, you know, things are going fairly well. I want to come back in and, you know, and act in a way that enhances, you know, enhances other players

rather than just, you know, I want to play a more facilitator role and, you know, and try to make, try to get myself in there in a way that's going to help them rather than take it away from them. And I just don't have any faith that Dwayne Casey is able to run that kind of offense. But that's the least of the team's problems right now. Yeah. And tonight he looks, Blake. look bad enough that he wasn't getting those double teams that he kind of relied on to create offense last year. They were playing him one-on-one a lot of the time. And if he can't create

offense or if he's not drawing a defender away from a guy so that he can free somebody else up and he's not creating anything on offense for himself, he's just not doing anything besides struggling, you know? He was flat-footed tonight. He just, he looked off and it's just so concerning and Dwayne didn't really have any way to adjust I mean he gave the ball to Derek Rose a little bit more after that but he didn't what I would have done at the very end especially you know seeing that Blake is clearly not 100 percent I would have put the ball back in drumming's hands just switch it up do something different but we time and time again we just don't see any see until the post-game presser where he was like, oh, yeah, should have made some changes there.

Yeah, he's just, with the Raptors, he was notoriously unwilling to adjust. And, you know, of course, had his habit of playing favorites there as well. I mean, that just goes back to Thonmaker. But, you know, KCA is the way he likes to do things. And while he is more flexible than Stan Van Gundy, that is absolutely saying nothing. Stan Van Gundy was like cold iron You know The guy would not bend at all

You know You'd have his post game pressers It's like oh it's my fault You know I'm not doing a good job And then he would come back With the exact same game plan Down to the T

It seemed like a guy who would rather Throw the C You'd rather lose games They make changes sometimes In case he's not that bad But he's still pretty bad Yeah and making adjustments You know

Midgame You know Forget about it So, yeah, I mean, Griffin in the first half, when he was still trying to kind of isolate and drive to the net and whatnot and shoot threes, yeah. He was largely one-on-one. I saw them in the second half, though, when he was trying to back guys down, they were going after him, and they were just stealing the ball from him. And that's kind of concerning, because guys would just come in and poke the ball away, and he would just look completely befuddled. He looked like a G-League player out there tonight.

He just didn't know what to do. So, yeah, if he can't get back to 100%, I would say this season is probably finished. Yeah, no, I know we keep coming back to that a lot, but it's just because it's so important that Blake is doing something. You know, our whole offensive identity kind of, it was Blake last year. And this year we have Derek Rose. He can create the bench. but if Blake is not what he was last year. Yeah, this season is kind of a wash.

We're already four and ten. Yeah. It just comes back to the question of, you know, the Pistons, yeah, they're four in ten. Despite, again, the quality competition being fairly low, you know, if not the, if not the day-by-day schedule itself, which has had the Pistons playing a lot of back-to-backs. and, you know, I think already a couple of three games and four nights, which is rough, of course, but schedule is just going to get harder and what can be done to turn the season around. You know, that's, yeah, that's the real question because. Absolutely, go ahead.

No, I mean, it's just because time is running out. I mean, the Pistons could not afford to, to, they can't afford to be in this position. already. You know, this, they're not, you know, I know they had that stretch last season where they rattled off a bunch of wins, you know, I think in, oh, was this early March or early February to mid-March, I think. But you had every, the stars aligning at that point, everybody, you know, you had, Jackson shot 50% from three, like, Kinnard shot 45%, Galloway shot 48%, and, and, and, 48%,

they're playing against really bad teams, stuff like that. And they're in their easy stretch of the schedule right now. Yeah. And it's like, you know, nobody wants to say the season's hopeless already. I mean, we're about a month in. You know, nobody wants to give up. But, I mean, I think the question surrounding this team right now is what can be done to turn things around because the Pistons, I would argue the last two are almost kind of like must win games i mean sure there's a lot of season left but

you don't want to find yourself in this kind of hole you're not even in december yet yeah and again such easy competition like you said like this is the time to be a few games above 500 if you really want to like secure your spot in the playoffs and we know that's what this team is trying to do and for them to be four and ten now uh it's really hard to imagine that they make up these games in the post-all-star break where our schedule is supposed to get a lot harder. It's just hard to imagine that they rectify that. Yeah, I mean, we'll see. I mean, stranger things have happened.

Of course, you know, something somebody who's not talked about at this point a lot because he barely hit the floor as Richard Jackson. Sure, hurting him lost, excuse me, losing him hurt. pardon me so because basically now you've got to run with a point guard rotation that includes either Bruce Brown or or Tim Frazier and Tim Frazier has been

certainly quite bad. His three-point touch has deserted him. He was always a horrific defender but it's like if you can shoot three is great you always have a place in the offense but he's been a very bad shooter. So of course that hurts. Jackson's, you know, that's, of course, built up quite a bit of synergy with Andrei Drummond, and it's unfortunate to lose that.

And Bruce Brown, I think he got a lot of hype around the game against the Nets in which he did fairly well, but then teams just started game-playing against him, and because he can't shoot, he's incredibly easy to game-plan against. His non-shooting point guards are almost extinct in the NBA. And Bruce Brown, not only can he not shoot, he's not a good driver. and his court vision sometimes good but often suspect. The guy is not good at seeing. He's basically if he's driving and you are to his left,

he's a right-handed guy, then he'll find you. Otherwise, he's not going to see you on the other side of the floor. He can't effectively shovel passes behind him. So he's not the greatest playmaker either. So, yeah, I think Jackson was kind of an understated loss. Do I think that this team would be in a great position with Reggie Jackson now? I don't know if he would be really the difference maker. But, you know, who knows?

It's hard to tell. Like, this was supposed to be as healthy offseason. He is clearly not healthy at all. So that hurts. But at the same time, I mean, losing Reggie Jackson is not going to throw your team into a tailspent. I mean, it's, well, let me correct myself since. like two seasons ago was more than enough to throw them a tailspin because they just put Ish Smith in the starting lineup

and that just didn't work out. So losing Reggie Jackson is not going to make the team look like the ball of chaos it is right now. The team is completely disjointed. And I don't think losing Jackson makes that happen or it causes them to turn into a horrible defensive team because Reggie Jackson is no defensive stalwart himself. Yeah, but to his credit, just last season, he did something that I didn't really expect from him.

Because you know that, like you said, he built that synergy with Drummond, just running pick and rolls all day for Stan Van Gundy. And then when Blake came, the ball was taken out of his hands, and rightfully so, Blake was drawing double teams and he was creating really well. And Jackson adjusted, you know, he took the off ball role. He was the spot of three guy, and he was playing that role very well. And I think that's part of what you need to make Griffin an effective player. You need spacing. You need people on the perimeter so that when Griffin goes inside, everybody doesn't just come in and try to stop him.

Because, I mean, even Bruce Brown mentioned this. He said when he's on the floor with Griffin, it's usually his man that goes over to double him. And Bruce, you can't really do anything about it because he's not a spacing threat. So losing Jackson, it's bad on its own because, you're missing your point guard, but you're also taking away from Griffin's game because you're making him less effective. Yeah, that's true. And I completely agree on Jackson's shift and role.

And I was impressed, maybe a little surprised that he took him with such grace. Because to that point of his career, I mean, he had, I think rightly earned a reputation as a pretty selfish player, a guy who wanted the spot late. and wanted to be the guy. Even, you know, I think he had, he had grown a bit, even at the start of 2017-2018 season. I saw some, you know, I definitely saw some change in his attitude. But, yeah, he's a spacing threat. He's a guy who can create off the pick and roll, though Dwayne Casey forgot about that for most of the last season. There's another thing about Dwayne Casey, I'll say he doesn't, like, when it comes to the pick-and-roll,

it's more just kind of like the pick and sort of role. Like when you see Derek Rose or Luke Conard, who are the guys who get the most pick and rolls, or Bruce Brown, I guess. You get the pick. I mean, Derek Rose will pull up from mid-range or bound to the basket. Luke will usually just shoot. But the Rollman doesn't roll hard at the basket.

The Pistons don't really do lob plays, which is bizarre to me. Because Drummond's always a lob threat. Christian Wood is certainly a lot of threat. He's highly athletic. He's really long. and he's got good hands. But it just doesn't happen. So what tends to happen is that the roll man,

I mean, if it's not a make or forget about it, he can barely set a screen and he's not a threat rolling to the basket at all. But even when you've got wood or drum it out there, generally the defense has a pretty easy time dealing with the role man, excuse me, with the ball handler, because the role man is not going hard at the basket.

He's not drawing his man down there. And, you know, if they're watching tape, they also know the pistons are never going to focus on getting the ball up there for a lob. So just another weird aspect of the offense. And I think something that plays in when you see the offense really stole. But, you know, back to what we're sorry, God. Part of that might just be that since Jackson's injury, he hasn't been, he's not the pick and roll man that he used to be. I mean, 2016, that was like the bulk of our offense.

It was just a lot of pick and rules with Reggie Jackson. and Andre Drummond, and they ran it pretty well. And Jackson was able to either reliably hit that floater from like 12 feet out or lob it up to Drummond. And he doesn't have that role man anymore. Luke Kennard, he can't penetrate really. I guess Derek Rose probably could do it. Maybe they should do that more.

And then Bruce Brown, he can't really finish. Even when he gets all the way to the rim, he's not really good at finishing. So that could be part of it as well. We just don't, he just, Drummond just doesn't have the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, ball handler to effectively do that anymore. No, I argue that.

Half a step, yeah, go ahead. Well, Jackson's lost half a step, but, but Casey doesn't, you know, I think it was, uh, it was well-known, but a lot of people, I think that Casey just barely even ran the pick and roll for about until about February of last season. He really wasn't using Jackson. that respect.

You know, sure, some of the time it just made sense to have Jackson spot up so that Griffin could feed him. But the guy's just not the greatest of diversifying offense. He tends to, I think, get very set in his ways. But, you know, in any event. So I would just say, you know, what do you think can be done at this point? Let's assume that Blake, I don't know, at this stage, maybe looks like he's about a month away, I would say. You know, what, what do you think the Pistons can reasonably do,

Dwayne Casey or anybody else can reasonably do to at least stem the bleeding for now? You know, if the Pistons can maybe win half their games from here on out, you know, until the end of the year, you know, what would you say can be done to make that happen? And it's hard to say because one of the issues that you kind of foresaw before the season even started was just that there's not really enough spacing threats. That's kind of paramount to an offense today. So already you're kind of limiting yourself in that way. And the other thing is that our two best players, they're at their best when they have those floor spaces, when they can operate down low and we don't have that.

So I guess I would say try to play Griffin and Drummond separately as much as you can. one of them should be on the floor at all times basically. I'm not sure if they're doing that right now, but put the ball back in Drummond's hands. I really do think that's something that teams haven't completely figured out yet. Besides that, it's hard to say because I want to say four guys have been shooting the three ball remarkably well. I think it was Tony Snell, Luke Kinnard, Marquif Morris,

and then Langston Galloway. And you got to hope that they keep it up. Maybe Jackson returns in however many weeks, and he's able to resume his spot-up threes, and then maybe you can get enough spacing on the floor that Drummond and Griffin can do what they need to do and just make the most of their talents. That's all I can say,

because this roster just, it has fit issues, and they're manifesting themselves right now. And if those four guys weren't shooting ridiculously well for the pistons, things would look even like considerably worse because everything else is going wrong. And even though we aren't winning games, at least they've been kind of close. Things would just be so much worse if these guys weren't knocking down their shots.

That's all I can think of. There's just a lot of limitations with this roster. Yeah, that certainly are. And with Jackson out and with Griffin still more or less out. I mean, he's been a negative since he's been back. And I got to think that's due to his health. Yeah, this team is short on threats. I mean, all I would say from my part is, I mean, at this stage, you keep Blake out until he's ready to play.

He's not ready to play right now. It's just, I mean, if you really think it's just, you know, like the organization obviously has more information on his state of health than we do. And, you know, if you're if you're the front office, if you're doing case, and you say we really think he's ready to play, he's just really rusty. And, you know, we just got to get him going. And sure, you keep putting him in games. From outward appearances, to me at least, it looks like he's just, he's still not healthy. Yeah. So, and if he's not healthy, I mean, the way he's, he's looked very bad.

If he's still hobbled, I mean, granted, he did well against the bucks last season, Mo hobbled, but he just looks really off right now. And if that's how he is, then you've got to keep him out until he's ready to go because, because, you know, he's played three games. And against the Timberwolves, he was okay, but not great. He's against the Hornets. He was fairly bad tonight. He was really bad.

So just keep him out. It's like you said, go back to what works, put the ball in Drummond's hands a lot, and we still will get him engaged again. And, you know, it was working decently well. Yeah, there's that too. Though, you know, I doubt the brain trust is really thinking much about that. You know, whatever the case, you know, it doesn't seem like they've really cared much about what's fun to watch for a while. Well, this being Tom Gores, anyway.

but in any event, I think you've ruthlessly coached shot selection. Like if you're doing Casey, you say drum and you're done bringing them all up the floor, for example. You're done with the bad isolations. You just cut all the bad shots out of the offense. No more Bruce Brown drives. Stuff like that. You just, you've got to really focus tremendously upon efficiency, getting your best guys, the best shots. You have to get rid of Thunmaker, please, finally, get, you know, out of the line.

up until he needs to go back in, just put Christian Wood at center. Enough is enough. I don't care if the guy screws up a defensive assignment here and there. And, you know, I'll say, sure, he's been real bad at times, defensively speaking. But even if you look at him and say, you know, real bad defensively versus Thon's simply quite bad defensively and Wood is a good score and Thon is a horrible score and Thon is good at nothing, I mean, like enough is enough. Don's been awful on the piss and has been terrible with him on the floor.

gone. No more lineups that can't score. I mean, you just basically got to optimize what you got. And this is why I was so unhappy with Casey being hired in the first place is that he inherited, you know, the roster he was given to coach was one that would need a lot of innovation, you know, to really make it work. And Casey is not that, and never in his career has he demonstrated that he's the kind of guy who's going to get, who's going to be creative and innovative. and then have the imagination and the will to really be constantly adapting on the fly to get the most out of the disjointed roster. So, yeah, those are the things I'd look at and hope the team can start playing better defense.

As much as offense is more important than defense in today's league, it's also not good to be a horrific defense. I mean, the cabs of two seasons ago got away with it because they have LeBron James. The business do not have LeBron James. And even they were worried about like the fit of the roster. They were all about maximizing LeBron with three-point shooting. So they had some of it right. The Pistons just, they don't.

They're just kind of stuck in some just old way of thinking where defense is still the most important thing. And they just can't win like that. You're right. Well, I would say Casey thinks the defense is the most important thing. but it's certainly not working for him. And like you said, if the offense weren't firing on all cylinders, then probably better than it should be, then things would be truly dire, I think.

If Galloway and if Galloway weren't playing super well, I mean, the Pistons, put it this way, could easily be like, you know, what, 4 and 11 right now, they could easily be a two-win team right now. If certain players had just been a little less hot at the right time. They've really needed players to completely go off. Like that second game against the Pacers, they needed Christian Wood to have a huge game. First game against the Pacers, they needed both rows, all rows and and Canard and Drummond to have huge games.

I mean, they've really relied on guys really exploding. And of course, you want somebody to explode, but you want to be able to win as a team, you know, on a consistent basis. So, yeah, I think all Pistons fans, you and I, and I think your average watch or anywhere, would certainly say that the season has been a bit of a nightmare so far. Yeah. And you just, you just, you got to hope for one of two things. You got to hope that the Pistons can somehow write the ship or that if things really go down the tubes, that the front office and the guy who owns the organization have,

the foresight to say, okay, this is, you know, that's it for this roster. You know, it's, it's time to, uh, to cut our losses and move on. Yeah. And I'd say that would be the decision that would be made, uh, a couple months in the future. But if the person's getting any deeper in the hole, it's going to be real hard to even think about playoffs in this conference, even in this conference, which is a very, very, very, very, very exceedingly weak conference. Absolutely.

Yeah. So that'll be it for the show today. Thank you all for listening and we will see you next time.