Game Recap/Notes: Game #55. Pistons 115 - Pacers 129. (8-47)
At least the Pistons showed some fight in parts of the second half because, after the first half, it seemed like this game was going to be a total embarrassment, so that a positive. Just assume that every single one of these ends with “and was totally atrocious defensively” because everyone was.
Cade Cunningham:
Not sure what exactly to make of Cade’s night. Statistically, it was excellent, 30 points on 13-21 from the field, 8 assists, 5 boards, and going +6 in 30 minutes of play. He was all the things you want from your star, efficient scoring on some tough shots, making his teammates better, and even avoiding turnover problems. At the same time he just didn’t feel that impactful for large stretches. Maybe that feeling is just the general pit of misery that following this season has been, perhaps the horridness of the Pistons’ first half was so overwhelming I couldn’t see a masterful game. But that is where I am at with it. Clearly not a bad game but just felt like the numbers flattered him a bit for actual impact outside of a stretch in the 3rd. The good news is that Cade has mostly not had these games, even when the team lost by a large margin he’s had a few standout performances.
Jaden Ivey:
Like Cade Cunningham, he went positive on the night (+6. And those two were the only Pistons to go positive.) But felt like the numbers more accurately reflect that I didn’t feel like he played terribly well. 14 points on 5-11 shooting isn’t horrible, and neither is 3 assists, but it just felt as though he wasn’t having the impact he needed. The good news here is that he did have several excellent buckets in tough situations. He and Cade being the only Pistons to go positive on the night really does stand out though and is making me think I may have let the overall score cloud how impactful both of them were. If there were a game of importance I would probably re-watch the whole game to re-assess my opinion.
Ausar Thompson:
The shooting from deep continued to be horrid but other than that it was a fairly positive game for the rookie. 11 points on 5-10 shooting along with 7 boards and 5 assists and being just about the only Pistons player to show any life on defense makes for a solid outing. Not that I was worried about Ausar falling off in the second half of the year but it is nice to see him pick right back up as a stat-stuffing player and as tough as his shooting is to make work on offense I think there is no question he should start the rest of the way.
Simone Fontechhio:
Solid outing for Fontechhio, 14 points on 6-12 shooting in 33 minutes of play is a tidy line, of real note is that he put the ball on the floor with some success on several of his buckets. In particular, I recall a pump-and-drive move that ended with a soft floater over Myles Turner and I instantly thought to myself “if he’s going to start doing that type of thing we may have to re-think what he could be for this team.” So now I’m telling you: if Simone Fontechhio continues to make some of the off-the-dribble moves he’s been making we might need to re-evaluate what he could be. There was some downside here though, mostly in the form of the emptiness of the rest of the stat-sheet, as valuable as his shooting is offensively and he isn’t a sieve defensively, he does not impact the game a ton in other areas. If we could manage to somehow merge Fontechhio with Ausar Thompson the Pistons could become contenders.
Jalen Duren:
Not a horrible game. As predicted he struggled mightily on defense to cope with the shooting of Myles Turner, but he did get some of it back by putting up a line of 15/13 with a pair of assists. He did continue the somewhat frightening trend of occasionally trying to, like, play point-guard or something and I do not like that at all but I’m going to pretend it isn’t indicative of a larger issue for now. Even with that in mind on one of those plays he put it on the floor and drove past Myles Turner for a huge dunk so maybe he knows what he’s doing.
James Wiseman:
I don’t wanna talk about it. He played 18 minutes.
Troy Brown Jr:
2 points on 13 minutes. Had little impact and badly missed both his three-point attempts.
Malachi Flynn:
Only finished with 2 points and 3 assists in 11 minutes, although there was a short stretch where it felt like he was really driving the Pistons forward on a short run which was nice to see.
Evan Fournier:
The only bench guy to bring much tonight, finished with 10 points 3-4 shooting and hit 3 long-balls in a row at one point.
Shake Milton:
History says that it is an outlier and Milton is actually a solid NBA player, but we might want to talk about the fact that he was having a career-bad year before being traded here and if he doesn’t shake out of it he’s totally unplayable.
Marcus Sasser:
This guy likes to shoot. 9 points on 3-6 shooting in just 10 minutes of playtime.
General:
Remember in the preview when I said something about how Monty Williams really has to get his head on straight and there isn’t much excuse for doing rotational/lineup stuff that doesn’t make any sense? We got some Sasser as the true PG minutes, the all-bench lineups that have gotten killed all year, more minutes for Wiseman and Fournier than you needed, and a bafflingly low number of minutes for your three best players. Very frustrating.