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This year, the average NBA team scoring avg is just above 112 per. The Pistons have held their opponents to just above 109 (better than avg). However our offense is only about 106. Is it the offense? Would the same defense with us scoring 115 pts per game make a huge diff.. All we've hear is how bad our defense is. Don't think it's the biggest problem we have.

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That's surprising. The eye test proves how bad our defense is but maybe we just go through large spurts of bad defense with good defense mixed in at times so the bad pops out more. Griffin nailed it in the post game last night though. Effort, energy, hustle, communication, etc. is lacking. Guys just aren't playing with that extra effort we need.

Every team avg of 112 and above has a winning record.

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We don't play good defense. We just play slow. We are the 8th worst in opponent fg % and 6th worst in opponent 3 pt%.

Offensively, we are the 8th best in fg% and 3rd best in 3 point %.

From looking at every game Blake shouldn't be calling people out for lack of effort on D. I've seen highkights of every game where he's late, missed a rotation or just couldn't be bothered to move that's resulted in made shots or easy offensive boards that turn into dunks or lay ups.

As bad as we are defensively it's hard to improve on that end. It's a attitude, effort and intensity thing.

Offensively our rotations don't play to our strengths.

We don't have enough shooting or playmaking as it is on the perimeter but when you've got a line up of Snell, Galloway & Brown out there (as a example) you're asking for trouble.

We don't stagger Blake & Dre enough, we don't play our game from the opening tip, we don't start the game well at all (wrong line up, not getting guys good looks early)

It's about laying a platform early that establishes certain guys who will then draw the defenders away from your weaker players. We don't do that IMO.

Frustrating to watch and while I might think our coaching staff could change it up they have their own philosophy and strategies on what they're trying to accomplish. It ain't working!

Sad thing is that all these "close" losses will give the coaching staff hope and they'll only look at the last 3 mins, 5 mins or quarter for "answers".


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We've played mostly against inept teams, that's why our defense seems better than average. I haven't watched a game in a while but I doubt our defense has improved.

Kennard/Rose/Wood are all major pieces of our rotation (and sadly so is Svi) and they are all bad defenders. Not sure if Frazier is getting minutes but he is a HUGE liability on defense (and on offense fwiw). Griffin is not a great defender either. Galloway is undersized. Drummond is inconsistent. Snell and Brown are good defenders and Kieff is solid.

Our problem is lack of talent. Griffin is not health. Without Griffin last season we were the worst team in the league, this season with Blake not 100% we're not much better than that.

As already mentioned, it's pace. We play slow, and to still give up 109 playing slow is pretty sad. Also, scoring 106 playing slow isn't bad... we're shooting an unsustainable 38.8% from three, which is 3rd in the league, and we're still getting our asses handed to us.

We suck.

ALso, we're 8th in FG% overall and about average in FT attempts. The offense has been decent. The defense is awful.

As of right now we are 14th in offensive rating and 21st in defensive rating. Were top 3 in turnover % and give up the 7th most points in the paint. So yes the defense is a problem.

Looking at points per game is misleading because it ignores pace (we are the 5th slowest team in the league meaning both we and our opponents get fewer opportunities). In other words, looking at points scored and allowed per game will make a slow teams’ offense look worse and defense look better. That’s clearly the case for us. Which is why other metrics need to be looked at.

By rating, which looks at scores per certain number of possessions, we have been a middle of the pack offense so far, and a defense that’s ranked 20th. We’re actually underperforming in actual W/L so far based on that, which reflects the fact we’ve blown some close games.

Of course, looking at rating this early is misleading too, as it does not take into account strength of schedule, which is more prone to being unbalanced the earlier we are. We’ve had and EASY schedule.

The tl;dr is that when you look at the stats that matter, you see that is that our defense is worse than our offense, but neither is good and both likely to get worse as our schedule ratchets up in difficulty.

Defense is the larger problem, at least so far.

Good offense will beat good defense.

Snakebites wrote:Looking at points per game is misleading because it ignores pace (we are the 5th slowest team in the league meaning both we and our opponents get fewer opportunities). In other words, looking at points scored and allowed per game will make a slow teams’ offense look worse and defense look better. That’s clearly the case for us. Which is why other metrics need to be looked at.

By rating, which looks at scores per certain number of possessions, we have been a middle of the pack offense so far, and a defense that’s ranked 20th. We’re actually underperforming in actual W/L so far based on that, which reflects the fact we’ve blown some close games.

Of course, looking at rating this early is misleading too, as it does not take into account strength of schedule, which is more prone to being unbalanced the earlier we are. We’ve had and EASY schedule.

The tl;dr is that when you look at the stats that matter, you see that is that our defense is worse than our offense, but neither is good and both likely to get worse as our schedule ratchets up in difficulty.

Defense is the larger problem, at least so far.

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We are two-way suckers.

As has been stated many times before, it appears to be clear that this team wasn’t constructed with any kind of identity. It’s a continuation of years of sticking bandaids over bullet holes and hoping they don’t bleed through.