The Detroit Pistons came into Monday night's game against the San Antonio Spurs with the best record in the NBA. Having already exceeded all regular-season expectations, the Pistons have been eyeing postseason success. Yet, major weaknesses remain between them and true contention, and the front office did very little to address these weaknesses at the trade deadline. Pistons fans have real concerns about the team's lack of shooting and offensive threats, and these became a bleak reality in Detroit's loss to the Spurs on Monday.
Against a Victor Wembanyama-led defense, the Pistons struggled all night to create good looks. They drove at Wembanyama at the rim without a plan, but failed to finish over him outside of Jalen Duren. Wemby finished the game with six blocks and deterred many more attempts at the rim. Cade Cunningham was a miserable 5/26 from the field in one of his worst offensive games of the season.
Pistons' Struggles Against Victor Wembanyama Should Raise Alarm Bells Ahead of Playoffs
More importantly, however, the Pistons were a 7/36 from downtown, compared to San Antonio's 18/40. That is too significant a math problem to overcome, regardless of how good you are in other aspects of the game. And Detroit was really good in other aspects of the game; they defended very well, played extremely hard, forced a ton of turnovers, and got plenty of offensive rebounds.
This is not surprising. It has never been about effort and hustle for the Pistons. JB Bickerstaff has gotten this team to compete hard every single night. Yet, the offensive shortcomings prove to be too much when the Pistons go up against elite defenses.
Yes, the Pistons will likely shoot better than 19.4% from three in most of their playoff games. Cunningham is not going to face Wembanyama at the rim until the NBA Finals, and when he does, he will presumably shoot better than 5/26 from the field. However, Detroit has offensive issues due to its roster-building and rotations that it may find hard to overcome in the postseason.
The Pistons rank 27th in three-point attempt frequency and 22nd in accuracy. There is no one in the rotation outside of Duncan Robinson who instills fear into opponents when left open behind the three-point line. In fact, there are only two players in the rotation who are shooting better than league average from downtown: Robinson and Daniss Jenkins. Considering Jenkins makes less than one three per game on average, the lack of Detroit's shooting threats becomes scarily obvious.
Detroit had a 65.6 offensive rating in the half-court against the Spurs, one of the lowest numbers of any team in any game all season. For the season, the Pistons are the 18th-best offense in the league in the half-court. They make up for it in offensive rebounding and transition, but the game slows down in the playoffs, and the game becomes more about the half-court. If the Spurs game is any indication, this could be Detroit's downfall in springtime.