Posts Tagged → Lawrence Frank
Pistons have heartbreaking loss to Bulls, but Rodney Stuckey will be better for this
Let’s get this out of the way up front: I know Rodney Stuckey missed two free throws near the end of regulation, either of which would’ve made Derrick Rose’s game-tying three an irrelevant lead-cutting three in the final seconds. More on that in a second though. Rose getting that clean a look was Greg Monroe‘s fault.
The Bulls had no timeouts, Rose’s man got rubbed on a screen and, with the Bulls in need of a three, Monroe back-pedaled, as he would in most normal situations with Rose in front of him in the open court so that he doesn’t get blown by. But a blow-by at that point in the game would’ve been fine. The Bulls need a three, Monroe gave Rose a lot of space on that switch and Rose did what Rose is known for doing, hit a big shot to send the game to overtime. (NOTE: Just watched Lawrence Frank on Fox Sports Detroit say that the plan was to foul Rose before he could get a shot off, but Ben Gordon got too hung up in the screen to grab Rose and Monroe stayed to far back to foul before getting the shot off).
But back to Stuckey, the other factor in a poorly played final minute that erased an otherwise really good effort by the Pistons. Stuckey split at the line twice in that final minute and actually hit only 13-for-18 of his free throws in the game (72 percent compared to his season average of 84 percent). When the Pistons walked off the court as regulation ended, a visibly upset Stuckey had his jersey pulled over his head and had to be consoled by several teammates. That whole scene is a big change from a year ago, when there were times Stuckey didn’t care all that much when he was on the court and the entire Pistons team seemed hesitant to comfort or support each other in trying moments.
It’s unfortunate regulation ended that way for Stuckey, because he was brilliant in the game. He scored 32 points on just 19 shots. Chicago’s guards couldn’t keep him out of the lane and he absorbed crazy amounts of contact from the Bulls’ physical frontline as he contorted his way to the hoop. He out-played Rose (24 points on 22 shots) and really, for the first time in his career, looked like Detroit’s leader on the court. As the season wraps up, Dan and I will write much, much more about the season Stuckey has had, but moments like this, where he comes up just a bit short, show just how much he’s improved as a player in order to get the Pistons in a position to win against a much better team and matured as a leader as his teammates definitely followed the example he set with his aggressiveness, defense and energy.
On Friday, Dan wrote about Detroit’s effort against Milwaukee being close to perfect. In essence, they played well enough to win without actually winning while other teams they’re in the mix with for lottery odds won. Well, if Friday was close to perfect, tonight was fully perfect. The Pistons were more competitive against a better team, still lost and still gain lottery position as Toronto and Sacramento both won tonight.
That’s no comfort to a Pistons team that deserved this win and, I’m sure, desperately wants to end that now 15 game losing streak to Chicago. But it doesn’t have to be consolation to them. They keep showing that their young players are starting to understand the level they have to play at to win consistently in this league, they keep coming up just a bit short and, hopefully, those losses now result in improved chances at landing another impact player to help the cause next season.
Villanueva and Gordon shine … defensively?
OK, so I’m exaggerating a tad. But Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon both gave the Pistons a lift, and both guys surprisingly held their own defensively. Villanueva, who got a shot at early playing time and made the most of it, scored 13 points and had three rebounds. He’s never going to be an instinctively good defender, but he is strong enough to do what he did tonight: hold his position in the post. Chicago’s bigs are strong and have established good post position against Detroit’s frontcourt in each meeting this season. Villanueva successfully pushed Carlos Boozer and Taj Gibson further away from the basket than they wanted to set up and he made a nice defensive play holding his ground against Gibson and stripping the ball from him when Gibson tried to shoot anyway.
Unfortunately, Villanueva also played a role in that fourth quarter that went really poorly late. He was called for a (completely bogus, in my opinion) flagrant foul against Rose on a layup attempt (Villanueva clearly made a play at the ball and his arm happened to make contact accidentally with Rose’s nose). Then, they jawed back and forth afterwards and Villanueva picked up a technical. So Chicago got three free throws plus the ball and ended up wiping out a four-point deficit on one possession. I think it was weak that Villanueva got the technical too. Rose was jawing way more than Villanueva, it appeared on TV. I don’t understand why it wasn’t a double technical, but whatever. It was an unfortunate cap to what was otherwise Villanueva’s best performance since last season.
As for Gordon, he made a nice defensive play blocking a C.J. Watson jumper, blocked another shot and had a steal. He didn’t provide much offense and his ball-handling was its sloppy self, but Gordon was committed and tough on defense. That hasn’t happened a lot in his Pistons career, so it’s worth pointing out, even if he didn’t score big.
Knight is good and not so good
The positive for Brandon Knight? He had seven assists, the third straight game he’s had seven or more. That’s the longest such streak he’s had this season. The not so positive? He had a season high seven turnovers. Chicago’s perimeter defense is good, but a lot of those turnovers were unforced, a result of Knight’s sloppiness moreso than Chicago’s defense. Stuckey, conversely, faced that same defense, handled the ball nearly as much and didn’t turn it over.
Knight hit five of his 10 shots and I’m really encouraged that this modest streaks hows a bit of consistency when it comes to him looking to set up other guys for good shots. I hope he can continue it until the end of the season and hope that the spike in turnovers was a one game blip.
Monroe struggles but battles
Chicago’s frontcourt has beat up on Monroe this season, and that was no different tonight. They contested virtually everything he put up and he only made 5-of-13 shots. He struggled to keep Joakim Noah off the glass (17 rebounds, 13 of which were offensive) and he had some noticeable mistakes (like the one highlighted above, for instance), but something that I liked: he still played a 41 minutes, nearly matching his season high. Frank has benched Monroe for costly miscues late in close games before. Tonight, he let Monroe play through those mistakes and stay on the court. With a back-to-back-to-back starting Tuesday, hopefully Monroe makes good use of his day off tomorrow.
This … (via)
I can’t find video but …
I thought the above dunk by Jason Maxiell was the best play of the game, until Damien Wilkins absolutely destroyed Kyle Korver on a break. I can’t do it justice with a description, but Wilkins drove hard at the basket, slowed down and acted like he was pulling the ball back out, then Korver pretty much stood straight up and looked the other way as Wilkins drove baseline for a dunk. I know I shouldn’t expect a lot out of the man who plays defense this way, but come on Kyle!
No Jonas
Jonas Jerebko received a DNP-CD most likely because he is physically over-matched against Chicago’s frontline and he’s played really poorly offensively (below 30 percent shooting) in three games vs. the Bulls this season while also not being able to defend Boozer, Noah, Gibson or Asik effectively. The bigger Villanueva got the first crack at Chicago off the bench and when he played well, I assume that’s why Jerebko didn’t get in.
I haven’t seen an injury or anything like that reported so, like Knight’s seven turnovers, I hope this is just a one-game thing and Jerebko is back in his normal role Tuesday.
Greg Monroe demands an increased role, gets it, looks smart
Greg Monroe, you sly minx. I see what you did there. Just a reminder, here were Monroe’s comments earlier this week:
“My number is not getting called, and we run the offense through other players now, so I got to work to get shots other ways, but I don’t think it’s anything the defenses are doing.
I won’t accuse Monroe of peaking ahead at the schedule to see that the next game those comments would coincide with would give him a heavy dose of Byron Mullens or D.J. White guarding him, but if he did do that … bravo sir. A lot of players get frustrated when they aren’t getting the touches they should and a lot of players suggest that that should change in the media. On losing teams, those players often end up looking a bit silly if they follow up comments like that by not performing well when they do get the touches. Detroit’s next opponent after Monroe’s comments virtually assured that he’d have a good game and thus prove to the coaching staff that the Moose should be getting well fed every game.
Monroe shot 11-for-14 and had 25 points, 11 rebounds, four assists a steal, a block and no turnovers in 26 minutes. Charlotte’s incredibly soft defense certainly was a factor, but Monroe also played energetically. His energy level hasn’t been that consistent over the last couple weeks, but he had it back tonight. He obviously played great, but he was also doing something I wish he’d do more of: run the floor. The knock on Monroe since he came into the league is that he’s not supremely athletic, but that’s a bit of a misconception. He’s not an explosive leaper, but he is actually pretty fast, faster than a lot of big men in the league, in fact.
Against Charlotte, he routinely turned and sprinted down the court, beating his man and resulting in easy dunks. Getting those kinds of opportunities is contingent on a few things. Smart teams get their guards back on defense to prevent fast big men like Monroe from beating people down the court. Charlotte is not a smart team, so that was out the window. And it’s also dependent on Detroit’s guards pushing the ball, getting penetration and looking for Monroe filling lanes. If Monroe is sprinting past his man while a guard is walking the ball up, that doesn’t really do much good. But tonight, everyone on the Pistons’ roster was aggressive, Brandon Knight and Rodney Stuckey looked to run on just about every possession and the results were good for Monroe.
A lot of Pistons had pretty statlines tonight. They played hard and clearly wanted to atone for some lackluster performances over the last week. But I can’t stress enough that this Charlotte team is one of the worst in recent NBA history. The Pistons have a much tougher challenge against a Milwaukee team that still has playoff hopes. Tonight’s game was fun to watch (if you’re not a Charlotte fan), but nothing all that revelatory came out of watching the Pistons run for uncontested layups and take advantage of some of the latest defensive rotations I’ve ever seen. If Monroe can carry over his dominance from tonight into tomorrow, I’ll be much more impressed, not that he wasn’t great to watch tonight.
The problem with Prince
I was about to respond to a comment from prolific commenter and president of the Tayshaun Prince fan club (I kid, I kid) Max here, but since tonight’s game so perfectly illustrated the issue, I’ll do it here instead. Prince shot 3-for-14 tonight, in a game where Monroe made 11-of-14 shots and Knight was 8-for-12. People have off games, whatever. I don’t care so much about that. What I care about is that, in a game like this where two guys clearly have it going and are getting whatever they want, Prince doesn’t defer. He just doesn’t. In fact, based on his comments earlier in the week, he doesn’t have any interest in a non-primary role. And I’m sorry, but for this team to grow, he has to. He has to realize that Monroe is a much better, more efficient offensive player. He has to realize when no one on Charlotte’s team can stay in front of Knight. He has to realize that when his shots aren’t falling (and it’s not like he was just missing open, good shots tonight … I counted four that weren’t great looks and there was still time on the shot clock to get a better shot).
This isn’t about defending Austin Daye, either. I have no problem with the team sending the message to a young player like Daye that he won’t see big minutes until he’s capable of out-producing a veteran who has middling production like Prince. I wish Daye played more and I wish that Prince didn’t lead the team in minutes. That seems unnecessary to me, but at the same time, he still takes decent care of the ball and he’s still an intelligent defensive player. Those things are enough to keep him as the starter at his position simply because the Pistons have no one else on the roster who can do those things.
But you know what they DO have on the roster? Players who can efficiently score — Monroe and Stuckey, in particular. Stuckey didn’t have it going tonight, and guess what? He deferred to the guys who did. He didn’t force shots. Prince is not a superstar-level player who must get his requisite number of shots up whether he has it going or not because YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHEN HE’LL GET HOT AND START NAILING LONG TWO AFTER LONG TWO! He was re-signed in Detroit for his basketball IQ and leadership ability. I won’t scoff at those things, if the front office and coaching staff is around him every day and believes those things are a commodity worth paying him what they’re paying him for as long as they’re paying him, I won’t debate that decision. They clearly have access to information that I don’t have. But watching Prince play like he played tonight, shooting far too often at the expense of teammates who were working themselves into great shots all night, is not playing smart basketball. Not being ready to take a reduced role, and he said in those comments linked above that he isn’t, is not displaying leadership and trust in rapidly improving young teammates like Monroe and Stuckey. The Pistons are going to have Prince around for a while. My biggest hope for the offseason is that he develops more of a willingness to become less of an option on offense. Him being phased out of the offense, settling back into a role as a third or fourth option at all times, is a good thing for Monroe and Stuckey and a good thing for the Pistons.
I don’t care that much about Knight’s points
The Pistons noted on Twitter that Knight had his ninth 20-point game tonight, tying him for second with Lindsey Hunter (behind Grant Hill) for the most by a rookie. I’m not really excited by that though.
What I am excited about? Knight had three steals tonight. Anyone who has read PistonPowered for a long time now knows how big a proponent Dan Feldman is of the steal (“they lead to more easy scoring opportunities/good shots than any other turnover! Blah Blah Blah!” – Feldman, probably, while also coming up with an elaborate graph to illustrate how much he loves them). One of the more frustrating things for me about watching Knight this season is he looks like a guard who should get a lot of steals — really fast, really long arms, always around passing lanes — yet that hasn’t translated in the stats. He’s averaging just .7 steals per game.
Against Charlotte, he had three. I’m sure he was aided by Charlotte’s sloppiness with the ball and the fact that they’re a turnover prone team, but that’s the one skill I think Knight could develop that would silence some of his critics out there. He might not ever be the traditional distributor, half-court point guard, but if he can add ball-hawking defender to his outside shooting ability and his ability to push the ball, then that’s the start of a pretty good player.
Knight getting steals also helps him as a passer. He’s a better and more willing passer in transition than in the halfcourt, and getting steals launches him into transition and allows him to either attack the basket or find teammates for layups.
A lot of players on the Pistons need to improve defensively. Knight is one guy who has the mix of work ethic and physical tools to make a big jump on defense if he works hard at it in the offseason.
Lawrence Frank uses the Lions as an example of how to close a season strong
Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press:
“Look at the Lions. Two years ago, they won their last four games,” Frank said. “It propelled them into a great off-season to a great start to the season to a great season where they went 10-6, so for us, what kind of momentum do we want to bring into the off-season?”
I appreciate Lawrence Frank‘s sentiment here. I really do. But the Lions are not the greatest comparison (and not just because they play football). When they went on that four game winning streak to end a season then made the playoffs the next year, they were led by Matt Stafford (No. 1 pick), Ndamukong Suh (No. 2 pick) and Calvin Johnson (No. 2 pick). A criticism of the Pistons’ rebuilding efforts has been that they got bad, but never bad enough to bottom out and pick once or twice at the top of the draft. The Lions on the other hand … they bottomed out. Boy, did they bottom out (spectacularly, I might add). The Pistons got an absolute steal in the mid-lottery with Greg Monroe, they found a player in the mid-lottery last year with Brandon Knight who could maybe develop and they found a second round pick who is a rotation contributor in Jonas Jerebko in 2009. Those are all nice, young players, but with the exception of Monroe, none project yet as franchise players. The Lions, on the other hand, drafted three guys who are legitimate All-Pros to fuel their turnaround.
I’m not saying it would be impossible for the Pistons to have that kind of turnaround and make the playoffs next season (it is, after all, a little easier to make the NBA playoffs, especially in the East, than it is to make the NFL playoffs), but the Pistons could also still benefit from hanging around the lottery another year if they don’t luck out this year and win the top pick.
Greg Monroe: ‘My number is not getting called’
Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press:
"Defenses are playing me the way they have been playing me all season," Monroe said. "My number is not getting called, and we run the offense through other players now, so I got to work to get shots other ways, but I don’t think it’s anything the defenses are doing.
"Not to disrespect anyone we’ve played, but it’s not like they are trying to deny me or something like that. I think I’m still able to touch the ball. I just think we are focusing on other players more."
There’s certainly truth to that, but Ellis provides an excellent scouting report that explains why Monroe’s struggles deal with more than just Lawrence Frank not designing plays for him:
But teams are riding Monroe’s dominant left hand and are doing a good job of sending him to help defenders. Monroe is a good passer when surveying the floor, but when he puts the ball on the floor he almost always is trying to score, and opponents know that.
Also, his teammates don’t help him at times. If he established good position inside, a poor entry pass can force him away from the basket and he winds up forcing a shot against the 24-second clock.
That’s an especially great point by Ellis that Monroe rarely looks to pass once he starts dribbling. It’s scary and exciting how much better Monroe can be.
Rodney Stuckey injury mars pathetic Pistons performance
The Pistons were embarrassingly bad in their 119-89 loss to the Magic tonight – but, hey, that occasionally happens to bad teams .
Sometimes, you have to relax, laugh at how inept the Pistons look and dream about lottery odds.
But the stinker became no joking matter when Rodney Stuckey bumped knees with Jason Richardson just before halftime. Stuckey received enough attention while sprawled on the court as the intermission began that the injury looked fairly serous. He didn’t return in the second half, and it would be a shame if yet another injury derailed the home stretch of what has been Stuckey’s finest season.
I can take some solace that a Stuckey injury would help the Pistons’ lottery odds, but I’d rather he didn’t experience what looked to be serious pain for my selfish desires as a fan.
Speaking of, I don’t think I’ve asked much of the Pistons this year, but man, they didn’t even come close tonight.
Tayshaun Prince made his first five shots. Otherwise, his teammates didn’t appear to realize they were playing in an NBA game tonight. They looked dazed as Ish Smith got wherever he wanted off the dribble while setting up his teammates for wide open 3-pointers – especially Richardson, who made 6-of-7 from beyond the arc – and Glen Davis had his way inside. The Pistons’ offense was nearly as disastrous, with turnovers and bad shots dominating the night.
But this was just one game, and unlike early in the season, Detroit has mostly avoided blowout losses to non-elite teams. With Dwight Howard out, the Magic certainly aren’t an elite team. Plus, the Pistons were playing their fourth games in four cities in five nights.
This ridiculous lack of effort is never acceptable, but it was relatively understandable tonight.
Being outsmarted, though, is also never acceptable, and there were no excuses tonight for that.
Stan Van Gundy is a better coach than Lawrence Frank, and this game illustrated a key reason: Van Gundy’s players understand what’s a good shot much better than Frank’s do.
The numbers in a game like this can be a bit misleading, but thankfully, there’s a clear cutoff:
At that point, both teams were shooting a similar percentage on shots longer than 18 feet:
- Pistons: .500 (7-of-14)
- Magic: .522 (12-of-23)
But one team was scoring much more efficiently on those shots:
- Pistons: 1.21 points per shot (17 points)
- Magic: 1.57 points per shot (36 points)
That’s because a much larger percentage of Orlando’s long jumpers were 3-pointers compared to Detroit’s. From that distance, the expected value of a 3-point attempt is considerably higher than a 2-point attempt.
The Pistons repeatedly passed up decent looks at 3-pointers only to settle for similar looks at long 2-pointers. That’s bad basketball, and unless they fix it, that will lead to more bad losses.
Before Frank gets on his players for their effort tonight, he should look at that systematic flaw in his offense.
Awful skid
With a 98-75 loss to the Heat on Sunday, Detroit has lost its last two games by a combined 53 points. That’s the Pistons’ worst two-game stretch since they lost to the Trail Blazers by 31 points and the Lakers by 24 points – a combined 55 points – during the 2000-01 season.
The Pistons have also lost three in a row. Their 30-point loss tonight was their worst loss of the season and matched a 30-point loss to the Nuggets on March 12, 2011.
Brandon Knight takes his turn to sit in crunch time due to lazy defense
Last night, Greg Monroe played sloppy defense. A hard-working veteran behind him on the depth chart just so happened to have another near-vintage game in him, so Monroe sat as penance for a feeble effort in favor of Ben Wallace, playing just 20 minutes despite shooting the ball well.
Tonight, swap Monroe for Brandon Knight and Wallace for Will Bynum and you had the exact same scenario in Detroit’s road loss to Atlanta.
Knight played matador defense against Atlanta’s Jeff Teague, who got in the lane at will, finishing with 24 points, 11 assists and just two turnovers. Teague is certainly a tough cover due to his quickness. Knight has exhibited a lot of speed when he’s moving up and down the court all season, but he occasionally looks a bit slower when he has to move his feet side to side. Tonight was one of those ‘slow’ nights. A few of Teague’s layups were simply blow-bys, where Knight couldn’t even manage to get some contact on Teague before he was already on his way to the rim. By the midway point of the third quarter, shortly after another Teague layup, Lawrence Frank pulled Knight.
In both last night’s game with Monroe and tonight’s game with Knight, I’m not sure whether Frank subbed them out of those respective games intending to never put them back on the floor. In both cases, he had the option of veterans playing extremely well. Tonight, it was Bynum. He finished with 15 points, four rebounds, an assist and two steals. He was far from a defensive stopper, but he at least put more pressure on the ball against Teague than Knight was able to. He also came away with one of his trademark, jaw-dropping plays, hustling back on defense, going straight up and blocking a close-range shot attempt by Hawks Center Zaza Pachulia, who is at least a foot taller than Bynum.
When I was watching and writing about Wallace’s performance last night, the thought that we really only have a couple weeks left to appreciate what Wallace has meant to this franchise was never far from my mind. Bynum certainly has nowhere near the level of accomplishments Wallace has, but I’m having similar reflective feelings about him. The other day, Ben Gulker of Detroit Bad Boys wrote this:
I want Will Bynum to be MFWB again (that’s Marvelously Fantastic Will Bynum for the uninitiated).
Really, sincerely, I do. But he ain’t. Or at least, he hasn’t been. Yes, there have been some flashes and some nasty highlights. But overall, I can’t shake the feeling his time in Detroit is coming to an end.
Now, from a logical standpoint, I understand this. Bynum has always wanted a bigger role than he was able to play in Detroit. When he’s had consistent minutes, he’s been productive. With Knight and Rodney Stuckey essentially sharing most of the minutes at point guard between them, Bynum will never get the role he covets here. Plus, the skillset he brings to the table is too similar to how Knight and Stuckey already play. The Pistons could really use a backup guard who is a traditional distributor and who can be a spot-up shooter. Both parties would probably be best served by amicably parting ways. I get it.
It’s still a little sad, though, because I’ve become pretty attached to Bynum over the years. We all know the last four seasons of Pistons basketball have been difficult to watch. For me, (other than Monroe, of course) the biggest bright spot and most watchable player of that overall forgettable span has been Bynum. It has been pretty simple why. We’ve seen over those four years quite the collection of selfishness, incompetence and hideously ugly basketball by just about anyone who has anything to do with the on-court product (players, coaches, execs, everyone). Bynum, on the other hand, has not only provided more than his share of dynamic plays, he was always a guy whose passion, whose effort you couldn’t really question. He was always the guy at the short end of the stick when divvying out guard minutes and it was never for legitimate reasons. He out-worked any guard the Pistons had on the roster in front of him, whether it was established stars like Allen Iverson or Rip Hamilton, whether it was a prodigy young player like Stuckey or whether it was a pricey free agent like Ben Gordon. He played the least because the Pistons had the least invested in him. It wasn’t fair to him, but he was as professional as it got. He clearly wanted to play more, he clearly didn’t like sitting on the bench, but he never joined in the public grousing that other players who were unhappy (and less justifiably unhappy, I might add, compared to Bynum’s situation) with their roles partook in.
I don’t know whether Bynum will be a Piston next season again or not, but I was happy to see him get at least one more trademark Bynum performance. It was fitting that it came mostly with Stuckey on the court, too. I remember during the craziness of Iverson’s Pistons season, a few times because of the alternating injuries/pouting of Iverson and Hamilton, Michael Curry was forced to roll with a Bynum-Stuckey backcourt. I remember them being a lot of fun to watch, too. They seemed to have good chemistry with each other and both guys loved to push the ball and attack the basket. Both clearly put a lot of pressure on a defense. But in the John Kuester era, we didn’t see that lineup much simply because the Pistons had too much money invested in shooting guards to get Stuckey many minutes at the SG spot while Bynum played the point. They had a big impact on tonight’s game. When they were on the court together, the Pistons were +17 on Atlanta.
Like last night with Monroe and Wallace, Knight getting benched in favor of Bynum isn’t something I’m hoping becomes the norm as the season winds down, but I’m OK with it as a one-time thing. Knight played poorly on defense and a veteran behind him stepped in and played with the aggression and energy the Pistons want to see in Knight at all times. Hopefully, it just serves as a not so subtle reminder to Knight that minutes aren’t a given. And hopefully, it served as a nice audition for Bynum that helps interest a team in need of a change of pace guard it can give consistent minutes to next season.
Oh, and Stuckey is really good
I owe Stuckey a few thousand words about the immense leap forward he’s taken as a player and a leader this season. Trust me, that will be coming up. But for tonight, he scored 27 points off the bench, once again made putting Gordon on the court unnecessary (we all owe him a thank you for that) and he, Bynum, Damien Wilkins, Wallace and Jonas Jerebko formed a much more active, competitive and entertaining bunch to watch than a first unit that might have been run off the floor tonight if the Pistons didn’t have that lively bench crew stepping in. Oh, and speaking of starters, I know that +/- is not a tell-all stat, but Tayshaun Prince was a -30 tonight. Wow.
Monroe doesn’t respond
You know that part above where I mentioned that I hope Knight takes the hint of getting benched for lousy defense and plays better next time around? Basically, I could’ve just wrote, “Don’t respond how Monroe did tonight.” I didn’t expect Monroe to dominate offensively. The Hawks have a great defensively player/shot blocker in their frontcourt in Josh Smith and Monroe tends to have trouble getting his shots off against players like that. But as was noted a few times by commenters, he had another poor defensive game. He occasionally doesn’t move his feet well defensively facing up against bigs like Smith, he occasionally doesn’t react quickly enough to help on dribble penetration and he occasionally gets bullied into giving up position under the basket to bruising big men. Tonight, all those things happened in the same game. Knight was certainly guilty of not giving enough resistance to Teague, but Monroe was also late getting over to contest on some of Teague’s drives. Smith scored 22 points on 10-for-20 shooting against basically anyone the Pistons through at him and Ivan Johnson came off the bench to smash his way to the basket and shoot 8-for-12. Plenty of defensive blame to go around in this one, it’s not all on Monroe and Knight, but as potential cornerstone players the team is depending on down the road, both guys need to make significant strides on defense in the offseason. This was a bad one to watch.
Ben Wallace puts on a free throw shooting clinic (kind of) in Detroit’s win over Washington
With 6:10 remaining in the third quarter of Thursday’s 99-94 win over the Wizards, Ben Wallace subbed in for Greg Monroe and Monroe never returned.
Here are the defensive sequences that preceded that move: Kevin Seraphin missed a dunk; Kevin Seraphin made a dunk; John Wall drove in for a lightly contested layup; Seraphin made a short sweeping hook shot. On offense, Monroe threw a bad pass resulting in a turnover and committed a loose ball foul. All of that occurred in roughly two minutes, and Monroe was clearly a step slow on D in that stretch.
It wasn’t surprising that Lawrence Frank pulled Monroe there. It was pretty surprising that he never put him back in. On the one hand, I’ve been OK with Frank occasionally benching Monroe and Brandon Knight at times this season when their defense, effort or focus wanes some, and Monroe’s clearly did there. On the other hand, Monroe had 18 points (7-for-10 shooting) and 7 rebounds at that point and was basically unguardable. He had a bad stretch, but getting benched for the rest of the game seems like a heavy price to pay for a sloppy stretch.
On another hand (do I still have hands left to use?), BEN WALLACE!
Wallace not only unsurprisingly brought the requisite defensive intensity Frank was hoping his young center would display more of, he provided the above screen grab after Wizards coach Randy Wittman employed the hack-a-Ben strategy late in the game. Wallace knocked down his first four free throws after the Wizards started intentionally following him and ended up hitting 5-for-10 overall (hey, 50 percent is not bad considering he was below 30 percent on the season coming in). Wallace finished with eight rebounds, three assists, two steals and a block. AP reporter Dave Hogg summed up the performance pretty nicely on Twitter:
Someone should show Dwight Howard the video of Ben Wallace busting his ass for the last 18 minutes of that game.
It is hard to argue against big minutes for young players as the Pistons finish the season. Letting them play through mistakes can often be a good learning tool. But the Pistons are also in a unique position in that they have veterans like Wallace who are tough, smart and professional. Wallace isn’t playing to try and take Monroe’s minutes, he’s playing trying to set an example for the rest of the team to follow. There’s occasionally value in sitting a player like Monroe when his effort wanes some in favor of a player like Wallace whose effort NEVER wanes. Seriously, he’s amazing.
And you can’t even make the argument that sitting Monroe gave the Pistons a better chance to win. Monroe is clearly their best player. Benching him actually gave Washington a better chance at stealing the game. So the Pistons were able to play a veteran playing as hard as he possibly could, let their entire team watch how Wallace went about things tonight and (if Washington could’ve cooperated by not air-balling layup attempts) worsen their chances for a win in the never-ending pursuit of lottery balls. And people say the Pistons don’t know how to tank correctly.
John Wall John Walls Brandon Knight
Brandon Knight no-showed on offense and defense tonight. He had a tough matchup with fellow Kentucky product John Wall, but he’s battled in tough matchups at other times in the season. Knight couldn’t stay in front of Wall when they were matched up on defense. No real shame in that, Wall is a tough cover. But Knight compounded it by shooting poorly on offense and failing to make plays for others too. Knight had one assist and four turnovers (compare to Wallace, who had 3 assists and 1 turnover) and formed a sloppy starting backcourt with Ben Gordon, who contributed four turnovers of his own. Gordon made up for it a bit by hitting six of his 13 shots.
Rodney Stuckey is back (briefly)
Rodney Stuckey returned from injury to put up nice numbers — he had 15 points on 6-for-7 shooting with three assists in 18 minutes. He took care of the ball better than the starting guards and played better defense. Unfortunately, he also did his Jonas Jerebko impersonation, getting a bit too aggressive and fouling out in just 18 minutes. He didn’t appear to have any lingering affects from his injury though, which was good.
Charlie Villanueva would like to be playing more
On Monday, Dan Feldman noted that Pistons trainer Arnie Kander praised Charlie Villanueva for how hard he has worked to recover from his ankle injury that sidelined him early in the season. Dan also wrote the following:
A hard-working, in-shape, self-motivated Charlie Villanueva deserves to play. Villanueva has immense talent, and most of his problems have appeared to stem from attitude. If that’s solved, even temporarily, it doesn’t make sense to keep sitting him.
I mostly agree with that. If the Pistons haven’t decided that they are using the amnesty clause on Villanueva in the offseason — and there have been no reports from the team that suggest they will use it on Villanueva or anyone — then it would make sense for them to give him occasional minutes in the hopes that he can either contribute or restore some semblance trade value that has been obliterated over his three seasons with the Pistons.
Via Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News, Lawrence Frank acknowledges that Villanueva has been doing what is asked of him behind the scenes:
“Look, it’s not a knock on Charlie,” Frank said after Monday’s practice. “Charlie is working hard and doing what we’re asking, but my thing is Greg, Max, Jonas, Body (Wallace) — you know they are all doing basically what we’re asking. In order to put Charlie in there, one of those guys has to sit.”
Complicating things, Goodwill also reported this:
A few of his teammates have privately noted how hard he’s worked in rehab, hoping he’d get a chance before season’s end.
Frank is in a tough situation here. Barring the amnesty, Villanueva probably isn’t going anywhere for a while because his contract is large, his production is small and now he’s possibly been affixed with the injury prone label. He also clearly doesn’t fit the defense-first system that Frank wants to run. But if he’s working hard and has the talent to help, and if players on the team see that and Villanueva still isn’t getting minutes, it might hurt some of the trust Frank has worked to rebuild this season.
If Villanueva is off the roster in the offseason than the issue of his playing time right now is irrelevant. But if the Pistons keep him, not finding minutes for him as this season winds down might be a mistake.
Lawrence Frank uses advanced stats – hooray (to show the Pistons’ defense has improved – hooray)
Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press:
Coach Lawrence Frank cited stats after practice Monday that say Detroit was 29th out of 30 teams defensively in January. The Pistons improved to 17th during February and were eighth during March.
When I read that, I worried Lawrence Frank wasn’t the progressive coach I thought he was and was using points per game – a misleading stat, especially considering Detroit’s slow pace – to describe the Pistons’ defensive ability. So, I checked the numbers.
Points allowed per game:
- January: 24th
- February: 12th
- March: 7th
With my hope renewed, I checked a more telling stat.
Defensive rating:
- January: 29th
- February: 17th
- March: 8th
Matches perfectly with what Frank said. It’s also very encouraging in a basketball sense, so that’s also pretty great all around.
Statistical support for this story from NBA.com.
Pistons: Charlie Villanueva working hard, in ‘really good shape’
Keith Langlois of Pistons.com:
Arnie Kander told me last week how hard Charlie has worked with him this season and said he’s gotten himself in really good shape, which is tough to do for players during the season. As the season goes on, practices begin to taper in duration and, in some ways, in intensity to preserve the bodies of the eight or nine players who are in the rotation. Players outside the rotation, then, have to be especially self-motivated to find ways to stay in top condition and Villanueva has done that. Is he frustrated that he’s not playing? I’m sure he is, but he hasn’t let it affect his attitude.
Caveats about the source of the information apply – of course, the Pistons organization would say one of its players is doing everything right – but if true, this is rather stunning and pleasing.
The problem with this report, though: If it’s true, it makes Lawrence Frank look bad. A hard-working, in-shape, self-motivated Charlie Villanueva deserves to play. Villanueva has immense talent, and most of his problems have appeared to stem from attitude. If that’s solved, even temporarily, it doesn’t make sense to keep sitting him.
What gives?
