Detroit Pistons Struggles Continue

At a shaky 3-10 and losers of four straight games, the Detroit Pistons are not who we thought they were.

Coming off a 99-89 loss to the Atlanta Hawks Friday, Detroit looked bad down the stretch.  Missing 13 of their last 16 field goal attempts, killing the comeback they worked  hard for.

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Granted, nobody had the DetroitPistons pegged as a top three team to start the season but everybody thought they would be better than what their record shows. There’s still a ton of basketball to be played but for the Pistons it appears to be the same song and dance. New coach, same struggles.

It’s not time to push the “panic button” just yet Pistons fans, but, nobody will blame you if your hand hovers over it, for now.

Defensively and on the boards, Detroit is solid. Currently sitting ninth in opponents points per game and fourth in rebounds per game.

A large part of why Detroit has struggled has been their shooting. Through 13 games, Detroit has shot under 40 percent in five of those games, including an awful 37.3 percent in their loss to Atlanta.

“Every game you look down, it’s 37, 38 percent.” Van Gundy told the teams website.  “I’m not putting it all on them because part of it is what you do offensively and the shots your offense is creating. But man, you look at our shooting percentages and we really just don’t have anybody playing at a very high level. ”

Correcting these problems was supposed to be solved in the off-season with the additions of Augustine, Butler and Meeks and with the hopes that Kentavious Caldwell-Pope could piece it together.

For the most part, Detroit has corrected their problem from three-point range — 15th in the NBA — but, when the three balls are not falling, Detroit struggles and looks to be playing on hopes and wishes as opposed to getting the ball in the paint.

Sitting 13th in the Eastern Conference and 27th in the league in scoring, the Detroit Pistons look no different from last year’s team. The effort is better but the results are still the same. The Smith, Monroe and Drummond lineup still does not work, and still provides spacing issues.

The trio is good for crashing the boards and creating a presence inside. Outside of that, few positives exist.

Perhaps, this is the best that any coach can do with this team and in order to improve or make noise in the playoffs, a trade or two must be made.

A positive is Andre Drummond rebounded from his offensive struggles.  The big man had 13 points and 16 rebounds in Friday’s loss.