Game Recap/Notes: Game #2 Pistons 106 - Knicks 130. (1-1)

Brutal game. Most of the time I don’t have much interest in applying effort to NBA players, most guys today largely play hard. This game is an exception. The number of easy buckets that the Knicks got in transition is flat-out unacceptable. Hugely disappointing night.

Box score.

Cade Cunningham:

15 points on 18 equivalents with 8 boards and 7 assists against 4 turnovers. He doesn't shoulder the bulk of the blame in the end, he made some effort to get tough buckets when the game was falling out of reach but the defense could never stabilize to the point that it mattered. Another game where he isn’t efficient enough scoring as well.

He still clearly seems to be set on taking a back seat for large portions and try to get going when the team needs him in the half-court. That’s fine because more than once last season he came out like gangbusters but had no legs left when he got later into the game. Tonight will hopefully be a nice learning experience for him and he should try to step it up before the gap gets so big. It is worth noting that he was the only Piston who played any real minutes that didn’t have a negative +/-.

Jaden Ivey:

Another impressive outing for Ivey who genuinely looks as good as anyone could’ve hoped for. 17 points on 14 equivalents, 9 very nice assists against 4 turnovers. He joined Cade in trying to pull the Pistons’ offense into gear for a stretch in the second quarter and he was aggressive on the break again, aggression that created a lot of good looks for teammates. Coming into the NBA his passing was suspected as his weakest point but it damn near looks like a positive through two games, if that holds up it is a HUGE development. He was also only -5.

One interesting note is that Ivey (along with Stewart) came out of the game a little bit early in the first quarter. The rotations got messed up the rest of the night due to foul trouble and the lopsided score but it suggests that there is interest in trying to get him minutes with the bench to help the bench with their offensive woes. We saw a few minutes of it in the second half tonight and it went poorly, but I do like the idea.

Saddiq Bey:

Got himself into a good groove. 26 points on just 17 equivalents, went 4-8 from deep and ran with Ivey to several easy buckets, even got to the line a couple of times. The thing that was especially impressive about this outing is that with the exception of a couple possessions he didn’t really feel like he was forcing it. The threes were largely open, and his other shots came to him naturally from the offense. I had/still have some concern about how Bey will find his groove when he is effectively the 4th option in the offense but tonight was a good sign that he can have some big nights while playing good complimentary ball. He was just -3 on the night.

Bojan Bogdanovic:

Another solid outing. 18 points on 11 equivalents and he showed off that he isn’t just a shooter by going just 1-2 from deep and 6-8 inside the arc and 3-4 at the line. Dwane Casey apparently decided that he was somewhat more to blame for the defensive issues than the other starts because he didn’t come back into the game with the other starters in the 4th quarter, and played just 26 minutes as a result. I’m not sure whether he was more to blame or not, that would require closer investigation, but still.

The good news is that we’ve got decent evidence that Bojan/Bey is certainly a quality offensive pairing on the wing. Shooting, rebounding, a dash of shot creation.

Isaiah Stewart:

Ends up being a brutal game. The numbers are not awful, 8 points on 11 equivalents with 10 rebounds. But the problem is that he went 1-6 from deep and every one of those was WIDE open. There was not a single time the entire night that the Knicks defended him anywhere on the court. In the first quarter, it led to a couple of alley-oops for Stewart but it was downhill from there.

New York big men were walling off the paint and contesting shots all night while Stewart stood open somewhere on the court. It isn’t fair to totally write off Stewart after two games but the leash isn’t long. You cannot shoot that badly while being that open every possession. He could shoot 33% on the looks he’s gotten through two games and it isn’t good enough. He is a complete anchor to the Pistons’ offense.

He’s one of the few guys for whom effort wasn’t an issue on defense but he still had plenty of miscues on the defensive end.

What do you mean 33% wouldn’t be good enough?

Let’s put it like this. When talking about Saddiq Bey, the legend Lazarus Jackson so elegantly put it “He'll get up 7 threes a night. Some nights he will made 2, some night he will make 4. But either way, you have to play him like he'll make 4, which is what matters.” So even if Bey shoots 35% from deep, if opponents stay glued to him (which they do) you can live with that. If you are so wide open that Mitchell Robinson gets to contest every shot then teams will live with 33%. 33% is 1 point per possession which is a bad offense in today’s NBA.

One point in Stew’s favor is that he, like the other starters only went -7 and he spent more time with the bench mob due to some quick Duren fouls.

What about him at power forward?

Yes, we saw that for a bit in what I assume was Casey making an attempt to find defensive stops. Playing next to Duren is when he went on a stretch of clunked 3s. Hard to say if the defense was meaningfully improved because it was against the Knicks’ deep bench by that point but whatever. Stewart has not shown to be anything near offensively skilled enough to work as a 4.

Kevin Knox:

This guy sucks. I get the basic idea of “talented player to take a flyer on who plays a position of need” but Knox has shown nothing worthwhile in his career. I was fairly baffled by the signing when it was made and he’s looked every bit as bad as I figured he would be. He was also brutal on the defensive end and was -22 in just 11 minutes of play behind 2 points on 6 shots.

If he keeps getting minutes maybe he will find a shooting rhythm and we end up happy we had him to fill in while the Pistons have injuries, but he looks so awful I wouldn’t mind one bit if he is the last guy off the bench from now on.

Jalen Duren:

Stark and painful reminder that Duren is 18 and actually its hard to succeed in the NBA. 8 points on 8 shots with 10 boards isn’t so bad but he picked up 2 quick fouls to force Stewart back into the game in the first quarter, and he was a total mess on the defensive end. This is obviously not anything to panic over, but it is a good reminder to pump the breaks.

Corey Joseph:

-26 in 12 minutes of play. how.

Killian Hayes:

0-5 from the field. 5 assists and some nice passes but also 4 turnovers in just 17 minutes of play. Whatever hope that he had fixed his shot is hanging by an edge, and tonight he even got heated badly on some defensive possessions which were bizarre.

Hayes is good enough defensively that he has real value in an NBA rotation, but the clock is ticking on him finding any semblance of an offensive game. He’s such a disaster right now that he can’t be anything more than a defensive specialist off the bench.

Hamidou Diallo:

Went 2-7 from the line. Bizzare. I do still believe that Diallo has value based purely on his ability to get to the hoop, but he’s such an awkward fit that I don’t know if an effective role will materialize.

General:

Never thought I’d be here defending Casey’s rotational choices but I’m not sure what the options are. It might be worth trying Braxton Key over Knox, maybe try McGruder to inject some shooting, but they are missing 3 good offensive options for the bench and until they get healthy the bench is going to be a mess and there’s no way it won’t be. Its also worth remembering that despite the lack of shooting, defense is what sunk the team tonight not offense.

They did bust out some zone in the early parts of the game which is an okay idea but given how the team clearly doesn’t understand whatever base defensive scheme they are trying I’d rather get that down pat before trying goofy wrinkles.

On that note, while the Pistons are young and its early in the season, it is pretty disappointing that they are so out of sync defensively and I’m not really sure what the idea is. They are switching regularly but not all the time and the players don’t seem to always know when they are and are not supposed to be switching. The holes their defense has had is almost comical.

Anyways. Another game tomorrow so no time to sulk.