What's Wrong with the Pistons

It was a disappointing preseason to say the least for Detroit.

It has been a rough preseason to say the least for the Detroit Pistons. Dwane Casey’s young squad dropped to 0-4 with Thursday night’s home loss to the Memphis Grizzlies 126-111. The games haven’t been that close and the Pistons have trailed at all times in virtually each matchup.

It’s just the preseason, and fans shouldn’t overreact, but the team looks all over the place. What specifically will Casey and the coaching staff work on over the next few days leading up to their opener against the Magic? Let’s dive into it:

Turnovers

Once again, I want to reiterate it’s just the preseason, but the Pistons have looked flat-out sloppy in every game thus far. After these four games, Detroit has averaged 19 turnovers per game. Plain and simple, that’s a problem. The league average for team turnovers last year was around 14 a game, and the Rockets were dead last in turnovers at 16.5 a game. The 21 turnovers the Pistons had in their first two games, will certainly not lead to winning basketball as it leads to easy fast break buckets for opponents.

Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey each averaged just under four turnovers for the preseason. The high turnover numbers shouldn’t come as a surprise for those who have seen the results of past young, inexperienced backcourts in the NBA. It’s a common trend that really young backcourts like Detroit’s do not win a lot of games for a while, because of how important steady ball-handlers are. Nonetheless, it’s not an excuse for the Pistons, Cunningham and Ivey have to be better.

Defensive Switching

Overall, Detroit has struggled tremendously on defense thus far, but the main source for these difficulties seems to be the large amount of switching Dwane Casey has his players doing. Through the four games, the Pistons have switched on virtually everything. The type of play doesn’t even matter. Whether an on-ball or off-ball screen, or an overlap, Detroit has switched on everything. It’s a scheme that has slowly become more common in the positionless modern NBA as the best defensive teams switch on many plays, however, not nearly as much as the Pistons have been.

When done incorrectly, switching at high rates can lead to some of the easiest buckets you’ll see and that’s been the case for the current Pistons. To run a switching scheme, a team needs to be quick and versatile, as defenders need to be ready for help defense at all times. So far, Detroit has had none of the above. They’ve had what some coaches would call “soft switches,” where they’re not committing to the switch and players aren’t getting over to their new man. There have been lowlights in all four of their games where their opponents use Casey’s switching scheme to their advantage. A big will be sent for an on-ball screen and immediately roll to the basket. The Pistons are too soft on the switch and the roller gets a wide open pass just as seen below.

To add onto their problems, Detroit’s help defense has been nonexistent. Whether by design, or not, off-ball defenders are sticking to their man instead of bringing help to a roller. It could be a choice by Dwane Casey to allow easy buckets only from skilled passers, rather than forcing all his players to be sprinting non-stop to cover for help. Regardless, it’s not working. There have been too many easy shots to count in the preseason and one can only hope it’s the coaching staff trying something out, or that it tightens up in time for the regular season.

Cade Cunningham

All offseason, almost every conversation surrounding the Pistons centered on the 2021 first overall pick. Most of those dialogues had words such as inefficiency thrown around, because of Cade’s 41.6 FG% last year. So far, Cunningham has done little to dismiss those concerns for his sophomore season. He shot an abysmal 30.6% from the field in the preseason.

It’s early, and these are games with no direct effect on records, but No. 2 has to improve for the red and blue. He’s had some unlucky breaks as he’s had many open looks from three but shot 5-23. As bad as that may seem, his shot looks promising. It’s smoother than it was at this time last year, so perhaps the poor FG% is from an unfortunate, brief slump.

Everyone in the league knows this is Cunningham’s team, and if Detroit is going to improve on last year’s 23-59 record, it all starts with their franchise guy. The Pistons staff will look to get him going early each game, and with some time, maybe those inefficiency conversations will fade away.