You’re back? Yeah, you can read through this at the end of the post if you care about such things.
Tonight at 7:00pm EST the Detroit Pistons will host the champion, Milwaukee Bucks. Both teams will be coming in with one day of rest, the Pistons coming off a shellacking at the hands of the Brooklyn Nets. The Bucks are coming off a loss against the Jazz.
The Them:
The Bucks are defending NBA champions, led by former MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. They come into this game with a record of just 3-4, and on a 3 game losing streak. Several key players didn’t play in their last outing and all of Jrue Holiday, Brook Lopez, and Khris Middleton, are uncertain for this game against the Pistons. So don’t be mistaken by the record, the Bucks are just battling a few early-season injuries and if they start to get guys back they will be at full force.
Giannis has not been impacted by any sort of championship hangover at all. Putting up a line of 27/11/6 on excellent efficiency and dominant defensive play. This is pretty much exactly what Giannis has been for a few years now.
Khris Middleton was out with illness last time out so I assume he is back tonight, he is a silky-smooth shooter with surprising physicality in his isolation game. Middleton is off to a cold start from deep though. Jrue Holiday (as of this writing) remains questionable, he is a menace defensively who will hit enough 3s and constantly slash to the paint.
Based on this presser with Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer it sounds like Jrue is fairly likely to play but Brook Lopez is not.
After the big names is a mixture of role players who are mostly rock solid. Bobby Portis is a tough defender and a good shooter as a big, trip artist Grayson Allen can shoot and handle the ball. Pat Connaughton is really athletic, Thannasis Antetokounmpo is big and athletic. Jordan Nwora can shoot a bit. Rodney Hood can do some of everything from the guard spot although he is still finding his footing with the Bucks.
This team is less terrifying if they continue to miss several key players, currently digging so deep into the rotation that the younger Greek Freak has started a couple of games isn’t ideal for them, but when they are at full health there is no reason they cannot compete with any team in the league, they’ve got a great top line along with solid depth pieces and everyone fits together.
Matchups to watch:
Pistons vs Giannis: Pretty obvious, but especially if the Bucks are missing some other key contributors, keeping Giannis from running wild will be important. In theory Grant, Diallo, and others can match up respectably but that’s always easier said than done.
Bucks vs injuries: Also fairly obvious, a big factor in this game will be if the Bucks 2nd and 3rd best players are on the floor and how limited they may or may not be.
Cade Cunningham vs Finding his footing: Cunningham is not listed on the injury report so the assumption is that he will be on the floor tonight. He had a rough debut, and while it might be that way until his ankle feels better, but hopefully he has whatever jitters out and feels stronger so he can have a better outing.
Killian Hayes vs. Aggression: The numbers do not really reflect it, but Killian has really started to look better the last few games. He’s put the ball on the floor and done the basketball version of “damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!” which is good. He’s a smooth enough athlete and smart enough passer that penetrating the defense can lead to good things from him.
Pistons vs. Hitting shots: The Pistons are shooting just 29% from deep. This cannot keep up if nothing else by sheer dumb luck. Regression to the mean for Olynyk, Bey, and Grant could be the recipe for an upset.
Dwane Casey vs. Not making me very sad: Just play the young guys through the 4th quarter please I’m begging you I don’t need more CoJo Olynyk Canadian power pick and rolls in crunch time.
So in conclusion…
Run for the hills if:
Giannis is in full destroyer mode to avoid a 4th straight loss
Holiday and Middleton are given clean bills of health
Hard hats are given out courtside on account of several injuries as a result of wayward Pistons shots
Wink knowingly at your friends if:
The Pistons are shooting above 50% from deep at halftime
Killian Hayes plays in the 4th quarter
Cade Cunningham heard people talking shit about his debut
Opportunities for me to look stupid:
Jeremy Grant busts out of his slump to a 30 point outing
The Pistons have no real answer for Giannis
Cade Cunningham arrives.
Pistons ride big games from Grant and Cunningham to the upset.
Pistons 120 - Bucks 114
What do you think? Can the Pistons bust out of the slump? Can they stop Giannis?
So you’re back? Where were you?
Short answer: got married, bought a house, all that grown-up stuff.
Long answer: Combination of knee injury and covid put me behind the 8 ball financially to start married life and I pretty much had to do the whole “time to be a man” thing and do some stuff that sucked but was needed. At the same time, the Pistons fucking sucked and the fanbase in a dark and toxic place and I knew I wasn’t watching closely enough to be as smart with my analysis as I wanted. Mostly though, it was hard to justify spending the time on it without it bringing in meaningful money. But things have settled down a bit now, all moved into the new house, got a different job with a consistent schedule (tho still a lot of hours), built my wife a pottery studio, and suddenly I’ve found myself glued to Pistons games again after drifting away for like a year. Then toss in that there have been like a dozen comments/posts asking where I’ve been and saying how much people miss my stuff and I couldn’t help myself anymore. So we back.
Substack?
Yeah. I paid money to host my previous site, at the very least I don’t need to do that anymore by going through substack. Using substack also makes it much easier to bring in some monetization to my work.
Monetize?
Yeah. Nothing will be paywalled, but people have always asked about supporting my work but it was always kind of a pain. Now it will be easy, you can just become a paying subscriber to the substack. Everything I do will still be free to access, if we get enough paying people that I can start to actually think about this as a proper side-gig we can maybe introduce some premium content but I’m not worried about that right now. The only thing I’m thinking right now is that I can set up a discord that any paying people can join and we can talk hoops during games.
You money-grubber
Hey man, I’ve got a mortgage and stuff now. I really just hope I can get enough paying subscribers to take my wife out to dinner occasionally as a treat for putting up with me watching so hoops so much.
What sort of premium content are you thinking of?
Not terribly worried about that right now, We’d need to get to like 100ish subscribers before I could even consider doing more stuff than the basics, but the basic idea is that the more money I can get coming in from my work, the more time and content I can produce. So like, a theoretical world where this really took off would probably see a return of the game-by-game way-too-in-depth video reviews. That type of thing. But that’s mostly a pipe dream, if we start to approach those sorts of numbers we can talk about it then.
We missed you.
I missed all of you too. Seriously. Never been so eager to be called an ignorant fool who hates all of your favorite players. Also, I’m not a mod anymore so I feel far more comfortable with wading into the mud with all of ya’ll. And if you’re new around here, strap in, it’s showtime.