Game 42: Pistons (10-31) vs. Suns (32-9) - Jan. 16 1:00 PM EST

whitehops · Post #1 » by **whitehops** » Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:07 pm

this is a pretty rough stretch coming up for in our next six games. we play the two best teams (suns and warriors), the jazz and the nuggets twice. the kings are the only team that aren't playoff-calibre.

hopefully the boys ball out again and steal a win against the suns!

also: enjoy the early start time because our next few games are gonna be LATE.

Manocad · Post #2 » by **Manocad** » Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:50 pm

If the Pistons start pulling out some wins against good teams it will be fun watching the same people who hollered "This team is a joke! Fire Weaver and Casey now! Trade everyone but Cade!" start hollering "WTF are they doing? They're going to mess up their draft position! Casey is trying to win every game! Fire him and Weaver now!"

DBC10 · Post #3 » by **DBC10** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 1:33 am

We've been on a roll lately (relative to actual record) but we can probably schedule in more losses than wins. The Western teams are starting to ramp up, jockeying for better positioning before all star break

I can see our win(s) being against the Jazz much more than the Suns or Warriors and lesser extent Nuggets. Watch us somehow blow out the Warriors only to get blown out by the Kangz. Please don't.

DetroitSho · Post #4 » by **DetroitSho** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 1:57 am

Manocad wrote:If the Pistons start pulling out some wins against good teams it will be fun watching the same people who hollered "This team is a joke! Fire Weaver and Casey now! Trade everyone but Cade!" start hollering "WTF are they doing? They're going to mess up their draft position! Casey is trying to win every game! Fire him and Weaver now!"

Homie that's already started to creep out in a couple posts. It's absolute face palm worthy.

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zeebneeb · Post #5 » by **zeebneeb** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 8:13 am

All I want is for the team to compete. I honestly don't give two **** about a draft pick, I'm sick of all the losing, but competing and losing to better teams, is progress. Wins would be the icing on the cake.

If I'm being straight, what really irks me is the obvious drops in effort. If the Pistons played as hard as they do against the Raptors, every damn game this season would be insanely enjoyable.

I get that young teams like this can be wildly inconsistent, but the effort, and competitive fire should always be there. I am also enjoying this lineup

Hayes
Cade
Bey
Diallo
Lyles

Lots of shooting, crisp passing, and stout defense. Highly enjoyable product. When Lyles plays with Cade/Hayes, he looks really good.

440BB · Post #6 » by **440BB** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 1:54 pm

Lyles has exceeded my expectations. Weaver picking him up as a backup PF cheap reclamation project looks like a good value. His willingness to play center in obvious mismatches without complaint contradicts his reputation before he came to Detroit. Pretty productive for $2.5m/year.

Manocad · Post #7 » by **Manocad** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 2:47 pm

440BB wrote:Lyles has exceeded my expectations. Weaver picking him up as a backup PF cheap reclamation project looks like a good value. His willingness to play center in obvious mismatches without complaint contradicts his reputation before he came to Detroit. Pretty productive for $2.5m/year.

Lyles has been fine as long as he's used the way he should be used. He's shown some strength in the post in being able to fight through contact and score when he gets the ball deep in the post or grabs an offensive board. Unfortunately it seems he blows as many attempts that you'd think he'd make as he makes attempts that you'd think he wouldn't. Which is fine if it all balances out at 50% or so shooting and he still drops the occasional 3. It's when he tries to play the Jerami Grant role that it usually ends badly. But as a bench big paired up with Garza playing the 4 while Garza plays the 5, yeah, the team could do worse. He's no stud defensively but when he puts in the effort he's ok. He moves ok and he can body up bigger guys.

Manocad · Post #8 » by **Manocad** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 3:11 pm

zeebneeb wrote:All I want is for the team to compete. I honestly don't give two **** about a draft pick, I'm sick of all the losing, but competing and losing to better teams, is progress. Wins would be the icing on the cake.

If I'm being straight, what really irks me is the obvious drops in effort. If the Pistons played as hard as they do against the Raptors, every damn game this season would be insanely enjoyable.

I get that young teams like this can be wildly inconsistent, but the effort, and competitive fire should always be there. I am also enjoying this lineup

Hayes
Cade
Bey
Diallo
Lyles

Lots of shooting, crisp passing, and stout defense. Highly enjoyable product. When Lyles plays with Cade/Hayes, he looks really good.

For sure. But I'll throw this out there fully expecting some people are going to insist Casey and Weaver are idiots and I'm crazy because they know what Casey and Weaver are thinking and can "guarantee" what they'll do...

Let's say that Weaver and Casey, like most of us, agreed that the team was not going to be at a playoff level this season due to lack of talent/development/youth. So the decision was to play around with the offensive and defensive schemes, line ups, etc. to determine which schemes and lineups delivered the best bang for the buck relative to best utilizing all the players' strengths--if possible--while being competitive and maybe winning some games against good teams. Now the obvious outcome of this strategy is that there will be some ugly losses when that experiment happens to result in a scheme/lineup that doesn't produce well while playing a hot opponent. And we've certainly seen that. That to me seems as or more logical than believing Casey is an idiot who just happens to run the right lineup and schemes out there occasionally and by luck wins a game against a good team here and there. So here's the crazy part given the results we've seen in January...if we continue to see similar results it's because Casey has been able to determine what works and what doesn't and is moving forward with what works.

Or maybe he continues to play around. I'll use Garza as an example because I get frustrated that he's never used as a post up option. Let's say Casey already knows that Garza can post up and be successful. So he tells Garza to set picks and roll to the 3 point line to improve those skills. Is it really that crazy an assumption in a season where winning games isn't important relative to fighting for a playoff spot? Simply put, the season could be developmental in its entirety in the sense that players will be told to play in a manner that develops the skills they DON'T have/should improve on. Again, that makes more sense to me than the "Weaver and Casey are idiots" logic. But as I always say, I'll give an NBA GM and coach the benefit of the doubt that they know more about how to do it right than I do. Not everyone does, as this forum has clearly demonstrated.

Simply put, patience is key. IMO the possibility DOES exist that building the team the right way comes with some pain along the way, and that incremental improvement along a constant upward trajectory on a per game basis can't always be expected.

whitehops · Post #9 » by **whitehops** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 3:59 pm

how many people building a scouting report on ayton for this offseason?

mattao313 · Post #10 » by **mattao313** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 4:07 pm

whitehops wrote:how many people building a scouting report on ayton for this offseason?

I don't see us having a chance at him unless phoenix has no desire to resign him which seems unlikely

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whitehops · Post #11 » by **whitehops** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 4:08 pm

mattao313 wrote:
whitehops wrote:how many people building a scouting report on ayton for this offseason?
I don't see us having a chance at him unless phoenix has no desire to resign him which seems unlikely

i know

Post #12 » by **Snakebites** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 4:44 pm

Yeah, there's no way we get Ayton.

The sooner people swallow that pill the easier it will be.

Invictus88 · Post #13 » by **Invictus88** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 4:52 pm

Manocad wrote:Simply put, patience is key. IMO the possibility DOES exist that building the team the right way comes with some pain along the way, and that incremental improvement along a constant upward trajectory on a per game basis can't always be expected.

This.

We've only just recently shown that we can put together long enough stretches in games to beat a few decent teams on occasion. We haven't at all shown that we can replicate these efforts with any form of intent when we want to. There's a huge chasm of learning that you need to cross to get from one to the other. Achieving that is learning how to be consistent; and that can take years.

So I look at this board and see the people complaining about lack of effort in a game following one in which we looked good. It's clear that those people don't understand how growth as a team (or even as an individual) actually works.

Note that I'm not even speaking to the rigors of a season, rookie walls, injuries that we do or do know know about, etc. All of those are other things are obstacles that need to be overcome in addition to just addressing the learning process I mention.

Patience. The dips in the ride make the heights achieved so much sweeter. Enjoy the whole ride.

whitehops · Post #14 » by **whitehops** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 4:58 pm

Snakebites wrote:Yeah, there's no way we get Ayton.

The sooner people swallow that pill the easier it will be.

i have trouble swallowing pills, does it come in a chewable?

mattao313 · Post #15 » by **mattao313** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 5:02 pm

whitehops wrote:
Snakebites wrote:Yeah, there's no way we get Ayton.

The sooner people swallow that pill the easier it will be.

i have trouble swallowing pills, does it come in a chewable?

We got a shot form

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Manocad · Post #16 » by **Manocad** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 5:08 pm

mattao313 wrote:
whitehops wrote:
Snakebites wrote:Yeah, there's no way we get Ayton.

The sooner people swallow that pill the easier it will be.

i have trouble swallowing pills, does it come in a chewable?
We got a shot form

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Which is even tougher to swallow.

mattao313 · Post #17 » by **mattao313** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 5:13 pm

Manocad wrote:
mattao313 wrote:
whitehops wrote:i have trouble swallowing pills, does it come in a chewable?
We got a shot form

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Which is even tougher to swallow.

LoL I was going for shot in the arm

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Manocad · Post #18 » by **Manocad** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 5:20 pm

mattao313 wrote:
Manocad wrote:
mattao313 wrote:We got a shot form

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Which is even tougher to swallow.
LoL I was going for shot in the arm

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Yeah, I was going for a euphemism.

kpt · Post #19 » by **kpt** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 5:47 pm

Kelly O back today

zeebneeb · Post #20 » by **zeebneeb** » Sun Jan 16, 2022 5:57 pm

whitehops wrote:how many people building a scouting report on ayton for this offseason?

If the Pistons end up(or any team for that matter)with Ayton, that means PHX has the worst front office on the planet. Ayton isn't some all-star great bigman, but he is absolutely a starting center on a title team, with some good potential.

I can't even imagine Ayton on this team, with Hayes and Cade. Honestly.