Great Article About Detroit's Defense

[coordinator0]

http://www.nba.com/article/2016/10/13/one-team-one-stat-detroit-pistons-opponent-shooting

I didn't want to make a whole new thread for it, but I think it's good enough to justify doing so. Lots of great info in there, good and bad, but here's a few things that stood out to me:

The restricted area and 3-point range are the areas of the floor that yield the most points per attempt. If a team can limit your opponents' layups and 3-pointers, it has the foundation of a good defense. And no team did a better job of forcing their opponents to shoot from the area in between than the Pistons did.

The Pistons didn't make any major changes to their rotation this summer and defensive improvement will have to come from within. It can start with Andre Drummond, who ranks as a below-average rim protector. According to SportVU, opponents shot 52.6 percent at the rim when Drummond was there to defend it, a mark which ranked 48th out of 60 players who defended at least five shots at the rim per game in at least 40 games.

In the playoffs, the Pistons were outscored by just five points in 156 minutes with Harris on the floor and by 29 points in 36 minutes with Harris on the bench.

[DBC10]

No doubt to our great defense from Morris and KCP. I'd easily argue that giving up dribble drives are far worse than giving up a 3, due to the way it scrambles defenses to recover. In which we also did fine as well.

If Drummond can be a good defender this year, we have the makings of a really solid defensive team with upside on variety of offense too.

[detroitKG]

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[zeebneeb]

This is exactly why Pope is so damn valuable. This is also why I shrug off his shooting struggles.

The Pistons where the best in the league in this case, and Pope is absolutely the main catalyst behind it.

Drummonds presence also is a major factor even though people love to rag on him a bit.

I sincerely hope Pope can shoot the 3 at his sophomore rate as it would make him one of the most valuable SG's in the league hands down.

Hell, I'd be happy with 33%. One thing that has to happen is that Jackson has to learn how to funnel players to Drummond just like how RIP, and Billups did with the Wallace brothers.

This takes time and these Pistons are an exceedingly young team.

[mattao313]

This pretty much reinforces what all knowledgeable Pistons fans think. Drummond need to become better on the defensive end, him ball watching giving up uncontested layups needs to stop.

[Blkbrd671]

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sooooo there's a chance?

[Todd3]

Rim protection is two-fold. First keeping shots out of the paint. Second, making them miss the ones they do get.

Can't discredit Drummond for allowing a high FG% without also crediting him for preventing the fewest FGAs to begin with.

The problem was he couldn't contest enough of them because no one ever rotated when he did.

Building that trust is going to be what gets them to the next level defensively. For all areas. Despite allowing the fewest 3s, we were only 17th in opp. 3FG%. We need to contest more all over the court, but in order to do that effectively guys need to keep rotating until the shot goes up, or its just springing another leak somewhere else.

That can be improved within with just more effort and discipline.

The Pistons have been a below-average offensive team in seven of the last eight seasons

This needs to improve just as much though, or guys will stop giving the extra effort on defense if they can't score enough to win:

[flow]

"It can start with Andre Drummond, who ranks as a below-average rim protector. According to SportVU, opponents shot 52.6 percent at the rim when Drummond was there to defend it, a mark which ranked 48th out of 60 players who defended at least five shots at the rim per game in at least 40 games."

"Jackson averaged 6.14 dribbles per touch, the most among 230 players with at least 1,000 touches, according to SportVU. He led the league with 626 shots after at least seven dribbles and was assisted on just 14.1 percent of his field goals, the lowest mark among anyone who played at least 25 games."

These are supposed to be our two best players.

.

[DBC10]

"It can start with Andre Drummond, who ranks as a below-average rim protector. According to SportVU, opponents shot 52.6 percent at the rim when Drummond was there to defend it, a mark which ranked 48th out of 60 players who defended at least five shots at the rim per game in at least 40 games."

"Jackson averaged 6.14 dribbles per touch, the most among 230 players with at least 1,000 touches, according to SportVU. He led the league with 626 shots after at least seven dribbles and was assisted on just 14.1 percent of his field goals, the lowest mark among anyone who played at least 25 games."

These are supposed to be our two best players.

.

Drummond isn't a good/great defender. That has been established a long time ago, his awareness and discipline isn't there. It's only been masked by the sheer fact that he has athleticism to recover sometimes and to contest late shots.

I don't solely blame RJ for him pounding the rock too much though. Our offense is stagnant and I'm sure SVG catered the offense to suit RJ's strengths. We'll see if this type of offense can sustain us even with better shooting, I"m going to guess not, since at some point, RJ is gonna have to take pressure off and have a semblance of ability to play off ball. I'm of the opinion RJ isn't nearly that good of a player where each set/play has to revolve around him pounding the rock for 6 seconds. We just don't have talent there.



John's analysis is spot on, considering he's an actual stats/analytics professional.

[DBC10]

This pretty much reinforces what all knowledgeable Pistons fans think. Drummond need to become better on the defensive end, him ball watching giving up uncontested layups needs to stop.

The ball watching and poor awareness is the sole reason why he's one of the lowest rim protectors percentage wise. So yuuuup, he needs to improve, no doubt.