Game Recap/Notes: Game #60. Pistons 106 - Magic 108. (15-45)

Disappointing, I won’t say I was sad about not going to overtime but still disappointing. Pistons pretty much stuck in it the entire game only to lose at the buzzer with a Wendell Carter tip-in but ultimately it was due to the 19 turnovers committed. Likely rookie of the year Paolo Banchero was held in check, Franz Wagner was good but not great. Difficult to wrap your head around shooting 50% from deep and still losing.

Box score.

Killian Hayes:

A perfectly fine, if fairly non-descript, night for Hayes. 12 points on 4-10 shooting (3-3 from the line) with 5 assists against 3 turnovers. Fultz caused real issues at times when Hayes was handling the ball but that isn’t a shocker. I suppose based on how things had been recently this counts as progress though given it wasn’t an outright bad game. His three came late in the game as a nice catch and shoot look from the corner, he hit a couple of tough middies, did his job.

Jaden Ivey:

Was just about the lone bright spot for Detroit as he finished with 25 points on 9-13 shooting with 4 assists and a pair of boards. Its always a little bit tricky to judge how well a guy actually played when they are so bouyed by a hot night shooting as he went 5-7 from deep, but several of those shots were tough pullups including a game-tieing three from way outside with just 4 seconds left. If nothing else it seems like Ivey really has started to take the reigns of the offense a bit more going back a few weeks and is the guy who has the ball in big moments. He did utterly blow a few defensive possessions but overall the effort on that end wasn’t bad. It’s also worth remembering that him relying more on the long-ball is understandable when the starting lineup has no shooting and makes little sense geometrically.

Bojan Bogdanovic:

Early on it looked like he was going to pick up right where he left off after a couple buckets but it wasn’t to be. He finished with a stinker of 7 points on 3-12 shooting from the field. He did manage 4 assists which is good for him but he is on the team to score. While several team issues (ghost box-outs, turnovers) are really at the core of why the Pistons lost, hard not to come away feeling like Bojan is the main individual culprit as the one guy who really did not show up the way he is expected to. That said, he’s been a rock all season so we don’t need to be too hard on him.

Isaiah Stewart:

Wasn’t awful. 10 points on 2-6 shooting from the field and 4-4 at the line is acceptable and 3 assists is a nice touch, 8 rebounds is fine. He did, however, pretty much seem to be the guy who blew the box out on Wendell Carter for the game-winning tip-in. Given the Pistons traded two of their only wings who could shoot I get why he’s still starting, but the starting lineup doesn’t make sense as it is. At least one of Hayes or Stewart needs to go, as it stands Bojan is the only proven plus shooter with Ivey being 2nd place I guess. It doesn’t work. They just shot 50% from deep on the night (largely thanks to Ivey and the bench) and still barely cracked 100 points.

Isaiah Livers:

9 points on 3-5 shooting, all from deep, in 22 minutes of play. This is the sort of stat-line he needs to put up and if he does it a few more games hopefully it will drag Dwane Casey into the 21st century as he realizes how important shooting is to the modern game.

James Wiseman:

Was headed for a brutal outing early on but salvaged it a bit to finish with 8 points on 4-10 shooting with 10 boards. Still not a good game, but not as bad. Despite hitting a couple of shots in the second half, this was still a pretty blatant display of why the Warriors gave up on him, he missed some bunnies, got beaten for several rebounds, and the defense is still BAD bad.

Cory Joseph:

Nope

Alec Burks:

16 points on a perfect 4-4 from the field (all threes) and 4-6 at the line in just 19 minutes of play. Just an absurd spark-plug off the bench, even more so when you toss in 5 boards and 3 assists. He was a huge reason the Pistons stuck in this game and his ability to draw fouls on jumpers is one of the crazier things I’ve seen.

Hamidou Diallo:

Not as good as Burks but joined him in being instrumental. 12 points on 5-10 shooting but they were largely the type of aggressive buckets we’ve come to expect of Diallo this year. I hope that the arrival of Hampton only pushes CoJo out of the rotation and not Diallo.

General:

Young-team stuff cost them the game tonight, which is frustrating given the Magic are also a young team. Main frustration from tonight is that I have no idea why they got the entire all-star break to think about how the rotation should look and came back with a starting lineup that makes so little sense.