Greg Monroe, Pistons. The winner of the award for highest PER not to make this team — and likely the actual All-Star team. Monroe ranks 11th in the league in PER, and I’ve already written about his wonderful all-around offensive game. But the limitations of Detroit’s surrounding talent works to inflate those numbers, and Monroe is constantly confused and out of position on defense. That stuff will come with time — as will the All-Star berths.

Monty Williams has sent to the NBA film of the foul in the Hornets’ game against Detroit that sent forward Jason Smith to the injured list.

Williams believes Pistons center Greg Monroe, a New Orleans native, should be suspended for flagrantly tossing Smith into another player, giving the Hornets’ energetic forward a concussion in the process.

“I believe the NBA needs to look at that play and maybe suspend Monroe because it was a violent play that should have been penalized and the refs didn’t catch it,” Williams said. “I think that’s one of the things they have to look at on film because that can’t happen.  Those kinds of plays can cause fights in the game.”

Here’s the play:

Modeled after ESPN’s 5-on-5, Patrick and I will answer three questions about a Pistons-related topic.

For each 3-on-3, we’ll be joined by a guest contributor. Today, that’s Matt Moore of CBSSports.com. Hardwood Paroxysm and NBC Sports’ ProBasketballTalk.com.

1. Who was Joe Dumars’ best draft pick?

Dan Feldman: Tayshaun Prince. Picking Prince 23rd in any draft would have been a steal, but 23rd in the 2002 draft is special. None of the 12 players picked before him ever amounted to much in the NBA. To find a near All-Star in that barren wasteland is special.

Patrick Hayes: Mehmet Okur. Since 1990, Okur is one of just 17 players who weren’t first round picks to make an All-Star team. Dumars’ strength in drafts has been finding talent late, and although Okur had his best years after leaving Detroit as a free agent, finding an All-Star big man in the second round is probably the best value pick Dumars has made.

Matt Moore: Tayshaun Prince. Greg Monroe is my first answer, because I hate obvious answers. But come on. Prince will have his jersey in the rafters. Total production, championship ring, highlight reel play (The Block).

2. Who was Joe Dumars’ worst draft pick?

Dan Feldman: Darko. I’m convinced nearly every other would have drafted Darko with the No. 2 pick in 2003, but that doesn’t completely absolve Dumars. The next three picks – Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade – became stars, and even the No. 6 pick, Chris Kaman, made an All-Star game. Dumars could have picked a name out of a hat and done better.

Patrick Hayes: The entire 2009 draft. Taking Austin Daye at No. 15 over Ty Lawson, Jrue Holiday, Darren Collison, Jeff Teague and Eric Maynor will always be the high-profile miss from this draft, but taking DaJuan Summers in the second round at No. 35 when DeJuan Blair was still on the board was worse. Add giving away a pretty solid player in Chase Budinger to Houston, and not even finding Jonas Jerebko at No. 39 can salvage this mess of a draft.

Matt Moore: /desperately searches for a way around the Darko pick. /still searching. /seriously, gotta find one. /it’s here somewhere, I know it. / Nope. Darko.

3. How do you rate Joe Dumars’ total draft record?

Dan Feldman: Excellent. Darko, Rodney White and Mateen Cleaves were high-profile busts, but even with them included, Dumars has done a quality job. He’s been hurt in the draft by the Pistons’ extended run of success – even good picks in the 20s probably aren’t game changers – but with more high picks coming, I’m convinced the draft will be a reliable source of talent for the rebuilding Pistons.

Patrick Hayes: More good than bad. He’s missed on a couple of high profile picks, but he’s consistently found legitimate rotation players all over the draft – Okur, Brian Cardinal, Tayshaun Prince, Amir Johnson, Arron Afflalo, Rodney Stuckey, Jason Maxiell, Jerebko, Carlos Delfino and Greg Monroe give him enough quality over the years to make a case that he knows how to identify talent in the draft. Whether he knows how to develop it is another discussion.

Matt Moore: Really well, actually. Darko busted but still starts in this league all these years later. Jerebko, steal. Afflalo, steal. Knight, quality. Monroe, future All-Star. Delfino, capable player. Dumars can draft. He just never puts himself in a position to draft multiple picks to reform the team.

What do you think? Share your answers in the comments.

He chose Darko, so he’s terrible! He found Tayshaun Prince in a weak draft, so he’s great!

That sort of analysis is unhelpful. Dumars has made some great draft picks. He’s also made some terrible picks. That’s true of anyone whose been a general manager as long as he has.

To truly gauge Dumars’ drafting ability, we should look at the entire body of work. Thankfully, Justin Kubatko of Basketball-Reference.com developed a system to do just that.

Kubatko created a chart of win shares a player should earn during his first four seasons, based on draft position. Using just the first four years – the length of rookie scale contracts – most fairly links a draftees’ play with the executive who picked him, rather than skewing the numbers with the player’s production long after he’s drafted.

The drawback to this method is just the draft classes that have spent four years in the NBA can be assessed. That means Austin Daye (likely a bad pick), DaJuan Summers (likely a bad pick), Jonas Jerebko (already earned more win shares than expected), Greg Monroe (certainly a good pick), Terrico White (almost certainly a bad pick), Brandon Knight (tossup), Kyle Singler (tossup) and Vernon Macklin (tossup) can’t be evaluated yet.

I think that’s fair. If we truly want to grade Dumars’ drafting, there’s no point declaring someone like Knight a success or failure at this very moment.

I also think it’s fair to include his 2008 draft picks, even though they’re not four seasons removed from being drafted. Two – Trent Plaisted and Deron Washington – never played in the NBA and likely never will, and the one who did – Walter Sharpe – might be even less likely to join an NBA team in the future.

Here’s Dumars’ draft history, from 2000-08, with each player’s expected and actual win shares through the first four seasons of his career:

A +16.5 in win shares is significant. That’s enough leeway to for all of Dumars’ picks through Monroe to retire today and still have Dumars come out ahead. Put another way, you could add a No. 5 pick who never played a minute in the NBA to the ledger, and Dumars would still have a positive draft record.

Granted, maybe Dumars shouldn’t get too much credit for a couple of his late picks drastically over-performing when he missed (12) more picks than he hit (8).* But most of Dumars’ misses came between picks 51 and 60, a range where the difference between a hit and a player never making a roster is minimal.

*Remember, this is based on historical production by pick, not the common over-hyped perception of draft picks. So the league average of hits is 50 percent (give or take).

In many ways, the draft presents a perfect setup for outside evaluation of a general manager.

We don’t know which trades Dumars has turned down and proposed. We don’t know which free agents would and wouldn’t consider Detroit, and of those who would, how much money they’d want to sign here.

But we know which players Dumars can draft, because the players have little to no choice in the matter.

Sure, win shares aren’t a perfect measure, though I don’t see a player on the above list that they misrepresent. And some drafts are stronger than others, but given how long Dumars has run the Pistons, I think that evens out.

My conclusion isn’t an approval of Dumars’ reign as GM. The Pistons have obviously struggled to develop too many of their draft picks, and that’s certainly an indictment of Dumars. But that point is moot unless he drafts good players.

He’s shown, over the long run, he does that better than most.

Hopefully, the injury doesn’t cause him to miss a lot of time — he’ll probably join a long line of famous masked Pistons like Bill Laimbeer, Antonio McDyess, Rip Hamilton and Charlie Villanueva. In the meantime, though, Knight’s absence allowed another rookie to show what he can do as a team’s primary lead guard.

Walker Russell‘s circumstances are quite different from Knight’s. Knight is a prized, highly hyped lottery pick who will be given ample opportunities to turn himself into a good NBA player. Russell has no such guarantees. He’s playing without a guaranteed contract. If not for a long list of injuries, the Pistons would’ve never signed him even to that non-guaranteed deal. He’ll be 30-years-old later this year. And when the Pistons regulars do return, there’s no guarantee, despite his solid play, that he’ll even hang around on the roster.

Saturday’s audition was big for Russell, and he made the most of it. He showed for an extended stretch what he has shown in the brief flashes of playing time the Pistons have given him: he can run a NBA offense, he always looks to make plays for others, he competes hard on defense and he takes care of the basketball. He scored nine points with four assists, two turnovers and two steals. If the Pistons can’t keep him, he might not be a difference maker, but he will give competent minutes off of most benches in a league that overall doesn’t have an abundance of unselfish, smart point guards.

But Russell’s performance didn’t just do him some favors if he finds himself in need of a new team soon. Subbing the minutes of a shoot-first player in Knight (he’s been getting incrementally better as a passer, but his first inclination his entire life has been to score the ball) for a pass-first (and maybe pass-second) player in Russell allowed the Pistons other shot-loving rotation players the chance to play more freely. Ignoring last night’s performance by Knight for a minute, when he’s been in the lineup, the Pistons offense hasn’t looked good. That’s not all Knight’s fault, but because he’s a shoot-first guy and because Rodney Stuckey and Tayshaun Prince are shoot-first guys, they all kind of struggle for power at times. All three guys possess some ability to create for others and all three possess some ability to create shots for themselves. What is usually missing is an understanding of who is supposed to do what. Sometimes all three are too assertive, sometimes none of them are. What has resulted has been a mess of an offense with no true facilitator and three guys who all seem to want that job, but none of the three showing he can do it full-time. Oh, and complicating things, the one guy who is a natural facilitator, who should have the offense running through him, Greg Monroe, plays center, so he relies on others to get him the ball. As we’ve seen all season, there are many games Monroe doesn’t touch it enough as a result.

Subbing Russell for Knight makes that problem less complex. When Russell’s in the game, he brings the ball up, he starts the offense and Prince and Stuckey didn’t have to worry about figuring out when they were supposed to take turns as playmakers and when they were supposed to simply take the shots that came to them.

Monroe also was heavily involved. He finished with 24 points and 16 rebounds, and he also got 17 shots, the most he’s had in the last four games.

I was looking forward to seeing how Knight followed up that first really good performance of his career. It’s disappointing he didn’t get a chance at it tonight, but the game wasn’t a total waste, either. Hopefully, he’s learning how to have command of an offense and run it efficiently when he gets to watch Russell out there.

Big plays by veterans

Stuckey and Prince didn’t have good games overall, but both helped put the game away late with key plays and big shots.

Prince made a nice pass to Jason Maxiell for a dunk to the the Pistons up five with 2:31 left. Stuckey hit a contested 18-footer off the dribble to put the Pistons up seven with less than two minutes left. Maxiell snuck in for an offensive rebound/dunk to put the Pistons up five with less than a minute to go.

Stuckey had a poor shooting night (5-for-13), but he got more aggressive in the second half and started getting to the free throw line by driving inside more. He was passive in the first half, didn’t get a couple of calls, and settled for jumpers after that. It was good to see him come out more aggressive, particularly late in the third quarter and in the fourth.

Prince also shot poorly, and he and a few others got torched by Trevor Ariza for 17 first half points. Prince did a little better job on him in the second half.

Maxiell had another fantastic game. Last night, I mentioned Maxiell’s previous struggles as a starter. He had a good game as a starter against Milwaukee, but due to injuries, the Bucks were starting their typical backup frontcourt guys. Tonight, Maxiell finished with 10 points, 5 rebounds and a block against a big frontline of Emeka Okafor and Jason Smith. Those guys certainly aren’t All-Stars, but Maxiell has often had problems getting shots off inside against taller players. He was active and delivered another encouraging performance in what has been a nice bounce-back season for him so far.

Jerebko impresses again

After a rough stretch of games where Jonas Jerebko wasn’t his energetic self, his activity has come back nicely over the last three games. He scored 11 points and had five rebounds against the Hornets.

More importantly, though, he’s stayed out of foul trouble the last three games. When Jerebko picks up quick fouls, he becomes much less aggressive. A non-aggressive Jerebko is a non-effective Jerebko. He’s a huge asset with his constant motion and activity when he can stay on the court.

Knight’s scoring early was impossible to ignore. He hit 3-pointers, attacked the basket, drew fouls and scored 18 first half points (and a career high 26 in the game), helping the Pistons get off to a good start for a change, something they’ve rarely been able to do this season. The scoring was certainly nice, but for the first time this season, Knight made the correct pass and delivered those passes with precision consistently throughout the game.

He finished with seven assists. He was owed a few more — Jason Maxiell, Jonas Jerebko and Tayshaun Prince all missed very make-able shots off of great passes in the first half that should have resulted in assists. But the outcome wasn’t as important as the setup. Knight’s passes were on target. He made amazing passes through traffic for layups. He made basic passes that simply kept the offense flowing. He has done neither of those things particularly well this season. For the first time, Knight’s production matched the rhetoric that he could be the starting point guard of the future.

Another name that came up in discussions of Knight today is Rodney Stuckey, both because Ben Gulker noted that Stuckey’s rookie assist/turnover numbers were far superior to Knight’s and because of my arguments with a couple Stuckey-loving slappies. I’m reminded of something Dan Feldman wrote about Stuckey earlier this season:

Stuckey is – obviously to nearly everybody – not close to Westbrook’s level. Playing through injury during a blowout loss won’t get him there. Playing well consistently will.

Once Stuckey gets healthy, that’s what I hope to see from him – not just sporadic bursts of energy, focus and production when it suits him.

Stuckey deserves credit for playing well enough lately to raise expectations, and I’m hoping this is finally the time he’ll break through. But he must earn it in games that don’t hold extra meaning to him.

Stuckey has undeniable talent and things he does well. But, as Dan noted, he’s spent four plus seasons now trying to turn into a player who can do more than offer tantalizing glimpses at a player capable of being more than simply a serviceable rotation player.

Knight’s performance against Milwaukee was a nice surprise considering his recent struggles and the fact that he arguably his worst pro game against these same Bucks less than a week ago. Knight isn’t the same player as Stuckey, but his challenge is the same: performances like this have to become routine, not pleasant surprises, if he’s going to become the player the Pistons think he is. As Stuckey has show during his career, finding that consistency isn’t so easy.

Greg Monroe does what Greg Monroe does

Nothing to see here, just a young center bullying like he does every night. Monroe had 18 points and 11 rebounds. He still didn’t shoot enough — he finished 7-for-12 with Knight and Prince both taking more shots than him. Nearly every time Monroe catches the ball around the basket, he gets a quality look for himself, even if they don’t all go in (but seriously … a large percentage go in, throw him the ball a lot more!).

He is still having a bit of a turnover issue. He had four more tonight, so that’s 14 in his last three games. But, as commenter David noted the other night, at least Monroe is making up a bit for those turnovers by getting steals at the other end. He had two vs. Milwaukee and now has nine over the last three games.

Jonas Jerebko helps everyone

Jerebko’s stats aren’t going to jump off at anyone — 6 points, 3 rebounds, an assist, a steal and a block in 22 minutes — but when he’s his active self, as he was tonight, he really helps the Pistons’ offense have some flow to it.

The Pistons don’t have many players who move without the ball. Stuckey, Knight and Prince all like to have the ball in their hands. Monroe doesn’t get it as often as he should, but he’s also a player who can be effective by touching the ball a lot on offense.

But for any of those players to look better when they are dominating the ball, they need movement. When they don’t get it, the offense is arguably the ugliest in the league. I’ve noted a few times that Monroe, in particular, benefits from an active Jerebko in the lineup because, unlike the others mentioned, Monroe is really good at hitting cutters and Jerebko is really good at making cuts.

Well, if Knight’s performance tonight is an indication, he might have the ability to pass on the move to guys who are also moving. Three times in the game, Knight got penetration and found Jerebko for an easy layup, then hit him trailing a play for a dunk and set up a short jumper that Jerebko will normally make, he just didn’t in this case. Jerebko’s minutes are somewhat limited because he’s had foul problems this season and, because of his frenetic style, he gets tired. A tired Jerebko is less effective. But when Lawrence Frank can keep him fresh and when Jerebko can keep himself from picking up cheap fouls, he can potentially help make Knight an even better player by providing a constant target for him.

Passive Austin Daye returns

Daye had a frustrating performance against Milwaukee. When he had a few good games to break out of his bad shooting slump a couple weeks ago, Daye was using his jumper to set up his dribble. The key, obviously, is he had to take his jumper and make it to make the defense understand it’s a threat. Those makes from the perimeter gave him more opportunities to put it on the floor.

Against the Bucks, Daye was hesitant to shoot his jumper again. He passed up good looks. He dribbled into worse shots than the ones he passed up. He missed a jumper in the third quarter and was slow to get back on defense, leading to an uncontested Milwaukee dunk and also leading to Daye taking a seat on the bench for the rest of the evening.

Daye is another lighting rod of debate around here, with a few commenters frequently objecting to Frank’s short leash with him. Tonight, it appeared that Daye’s teammates helped Frank make the decision. Knight and Maxiell were both visibly upset when Daye passed up good looks at shots on offense. Stuckey seemed upset with him on the transition dunk. It’s a recurring theme with Daye. If he doesn’t immediately make shots when he enters the game, his confidence is shot and his passivity afterwards hurts the team. Tonight was one of those nights for him. It became clear that the team couldn’t leave him on the floor. I have no idea how the Pistons solve whatever confidence issues he has.

Maxiell hits the boards

During John Kuester’s first season, he rewarded Jason Maxiell‘s hustle and solid play off the bench by giving him the first prolonged starting stretch of his career. The results weren’t good. Maxiell was over-matched against most starters and it took away one of his clear advantages: he often feasts against slow backup centers off the bench. So when Maxiell entered the starting lineup against New Jersey, I was worried that it might undo some of the production he’d been giving the team in his bench role. He didn’t play well against the Nets, but he had a nice game in his second start tonight against the Bucks, finishing with 8 points, 12 rebounds and 2 blocks (one on a Brandon Jennings floater ended up in the third row and the other was a traditional Maxiell smash from behind off the backboard). Surprisingly, it was his jumper that made him useful offensively. He looks much more comfortable taking shots in that 10-15 feet range than he ever has before.

Maxiell is not going to be effective every night, but he’s rebounding, blocking shots and playing energetic defense again this season. Plus, he looks like he’s in much better shape than he was last season. He, like many on the roster, still needs a prolonged streak of consistent play to rebuild his value, but at the very least, he’s getting there.

Defending Jennings

Brandon Jennings always has big games against the Pistons, and his improvement this season is a big reason the Bucks are still solid despite being hit with a ton of injuries. Plus, he always plays great against the Pistons. He got off to a good start and the Pistons couldn’t prevent him from pushing the ball up court and couldn’t keep him out of the lane early. But they adjusted, and Knight, Stuckey and Walker Russell all took turns at him, playing effective defense from about the second quarter on. Jennings only finished with one assist (partially a product of horrid shooting by his team) and he only scored four points in the second half.

CENTER: Greg Monroe. Detroit’s Monrobocop has been the conference’s second best center, no matter how bad the Pistons have looked. He’s averaging 16 points and almost 10 rebounds a game on 51 percent shooting while picking up more assists than turnovers. He edges Roy Hibbert, who plays for a much better team. But you can’t pick your teammates, unless you’re LeBron James or Stephen Jackson.

Earlier in the season, Patrick made the case that Monroe should be an All-Star. I’m not so sure. Since Patrick’s post, Monroe has tailed off a little and Joakim Noah has improved. It could come down to the wire.

Regardless, I doubt Monroe will make the All-Star Game. Still, it’s a credit to him that he’s in the discussion of who deserves to make the All-Star Game.

2. Greg Monroe, Pistons
How good has Monroe been this year? Not good enough to get Detroit out of the bottom five of the league, unfortunately, but I’ll tell you this: If Detroit was a better team, then Blake Griffin would have some competition for "best of class."

Monroe is top 12 in the NBA in PER and offensive rebound rate and top 20 in overall rebound rate. And while Detroit is an awful defensive team, only Ben Wallace is playing better defense than Monroe, who has to carry an offensive burden far more than Wallace does.

There are still questions about how Monroe would perform on a better team, or if he’s good enough to be a top-three player on a good team. But all things considered, no one in this class besides Griffin can touch Monroe right now.

Thorpe also ranked Jonas Jerebko fairly high:

14. Jonas Jerebko, Pistons (missed last year due to injury)
Jerebko is proof that tall guys who compete really hard can find their way on an NBA roster and even get playing time on bad teams. JJ hustles everywhere, even when he shouldn’t sometimes, like when he catches in space and tries to dribble attack. As a decent midrange shooter and an adequate defender, his energy is what ultimately gets him on the court.

After the inbound pass Prince holds the ball, guarded by the much smaller Keith Bogans, on the right wing. Greg Monroe is in the low-post. Brandon Knight and Jonas Jerebko stand at the left elbow.

Knight comes over to set a pick for Tayshaun Prince. Prince does a very poor job of using the screen, because as you can see, Knight must make a huge step to the right in order to give Prince any opportunity to get away from his defender. Luckily, the referees did not call a moving-screen violation. Unfortunately, the play wouldn’t get better, anyhow.

The Nets switch Deron Williams onto Tayshaun and Bogans stays with Knight. Williams is fast and strong enough to deny penetration by Prince. Meanwhile, Jerebko sets an off-ball screen for Walker Russell while Tayshaun drives left. I believe this was meant to be a hand-off, but Russell somehow simply runs into Jerebko.

Now, there are six players within a couple of feet of each other. Jerebko makes the correct read and fades out to the 3-point line, where he will receive the pass.

Note that the Pistons haven’t used (and will not use) their most effective scorer and one of their better screeners – Monroe – during this possession.

Jerebko has a pretty clear path toward the basket and tries to drive the ball into middle, while Prince hinders Shawne Williams to recover. Knight and Monroe (best shooter, best scorer on the court) are completely out of the picture.

Deron Williams makes another great read and quickly switches onto Jerebko, denying the penetration. Jerebko, who has little experience, gives the ball back to the veteran and let him isolate rather than giving the ball to Monroe, who is covered by Kris Humpries, one of the premier post defenders in NBA history (hint: irony).

Prince posts up Shawne Williams. Williams has several advantages, if not all. He is quicker, and more athletic.

Also, look at the bad spacing of the Pistons. Russell and Jerebko are in no position to score whatsoever. Monroe could take one more step inside to get within his range. Knight sort of hides far away from the basket, but at least he spaces the floor a little bit.

All the Nets are in position to help if Prince gets past his man. Knight should run over to the left wing to take one defender out of the picture, and if his defender decides to double team Prince, Knight could receive a pass and nail a 3-pointer. Jerebko should have stepped into Knight’s spot to create even more space. Another 3-point shooter other than Knight would have certainly helped, but I can’t blame Lawrence Frank for having Russell on the court.

Prince takes the contested fade-away jumper that was to be expected. Do you see Knight? No? Well, he is wide open at the top of the key. All five Nets are in the paint area, and Prince must recognize that. You cannot leave one of your best shooters wide open just so you can take a jumper with a hand in your face –unless you are Kobe Bryant, which Prince is not.

Another possible option would have been passing to Monroe, who has perfect position on Humphries. Granted, this would have been a risky pass, but still possible.

Patrick has written a lot written about Prince’s propensity to shoot, and this is a perfect example. We should let the youngsters try to win games like this. I just don’t see Prince making major contributions much longer, and the Pistons would be better off giving their green players these end-of-game shots.

What they can do is set small, realist goals and accomplish those. In a recent string of blowouts, the Pistons have been sloppy with the ball and turnovers have removed any chance of those games being competitive early. Against the Nets, the Pistons took care of the ball and they hung around the entire game.

The improvement started with the point guards. Brandon Knight broke out of his slump. He was aggressive, penetrating inside, looking for teammates and, most importantly, maintaining that aggression while not getting out of control. As expected, Deron Williams mostly had his way with Knight defensively when they were matched up, but Knight had good moments. He took Williams off the dribble and hit a contested jumper over him early in the fourth quarter, then drew an offensive foul on the other end.

Knight shot the ball poorly from 3-point range, but he played well down the stretch. He made a nice drive inside, drawing the defense, and found Jonas Jerebko for a short jumper to cut the Nets lead to two in the final minute. Then, with the Pistons down three on the final possession, Knight caught the ball and, although he didn’t get the shot off before the buzzer (even though his three almost went down), I like that they went to him and I like that he stormed off the court really mad at himself for missing. Knight had four assists and just one turnover in 43 minutes.

The other element of that point guard production came from Walker Russell. I’ve made no secret of my affection for the guy. He’s maybe the most unselfish passing guard the Pistons have had since Chauncey Billups was around (settle down nuetes … I’m not comparing him to Billups). Until tonight, his passing has been the only real contribution he’s made to the team. Tonight, he finally got his shot to fall as well. Russell scored 12 points on 5-for-9 shooting, his best effort as a pro. He also grabbed six rebounds, played pesky defense (he was really annoying Jordan Farmar) and finished with two assists and no turnovers.

As a team, the Pistons turned it over just nine times, tying a season-low. For lottery purposes, it’s for the best that the Pistons didn’t win. But for their young players, who played hard enough and well enough to win tonight, it would be nice if the Pistons could occasionally pull out a game like this to reward that work. For now, the team should be thrilled that they at least temporarily fixed the turnover issue.

Tayshaun Prince plays better

Let’s get the negative out of the way: Prince is still not doing a good job of making entry passes into the post. Not sure if the issue is him not setting up a good enough angle to get it in or Greg Monroe not establishing good enough position. Regardless, there’s an issue there between those two that needs to be fixed still. Also, I was no fan of Prince’s shot with the team down two. After Knight and Russell created shots through penetration all game and Monroe once again proved to be unguardable inside, the best the Pistons did on that possession was an iso for Prince in which he settled for a contested, fadeaway mid-range jumper. And on the defensive end, down two, Prince and Monroe both let Kris Humphries walk right between them and grab an offensive rebound with :20 seconds left. Now, it wasn’t that big a deal since Monroe tied Humphries up and the Pistons won the jump ball, but it was still a horrid breakdown at that point in the game.

But there were far more positives from Prince this game. He gradually became more willing to move the ball. He made much quicker decisions, which was key. Prince is his most effective when he catches the ball and quickly decides whether to shoot or pass. Too often, he holds. Sometimes, he’s able to slowly work himself into a decent shot. More often than not, though, he over-dribbles, the rest of the team stops moving and he either settles for a contested shot or passes to a teammate for an awkward shot as the shot clock is running down. Tonight, he wasn’t as methodical, and that made him infinitely easier to watch. He took 15 shots, but they were mostly good ones, and he made nine of them. He also had six rebounds and his four assists tied a season high.

The Pistons need to continually work on making Prince a part of the offense while also ensuring that he doesn’t assert himself as the only option.

No answer for Monroe

Monroe got more touches tonight. He finished with 21 points on 11 shots and New Jersey really had nothing for him inside.

Turnovers, though, were once again an issue. Monroe turned it over four times tonight after turning it over six times last night. He also didn’t do a good job boxing out on the defensive glass. There was the aforementioned whiff by Monroe and Prince on the Humphries offensive board. Shelden Williams grabbed six offensive rebounds in the first half and seven for the game. Monroe is a solid rebounder. He has the skill to be one of the game’s best. He still loses focus on the defensive glass too often.