3 Possible Solutions For Detroit Pistons Playoff Struggles

Last season, the Detroit Pistons took the NBA by storm after winning 60 games in the regular season and obtaining the top seed in the Eastern Conference, but the squad faced stiff opposition in both the first and second round of the postseason. 

Early on, the Pistons struggled to respond to the Orlando Magic’s drop coverage on defense down low, which began to expose big man Jalen Duren after his first All-Star campaign. After averaging nearly 20 points and 11 rebounds per night, Duren fell off a productivity cliff in the playoffs and looked like a shell of his former self offensively. 

From that point, the Magic were staying home defensively and not allowing Detroit into the paint, so the Pistons had to take what the defense was giving them. As a result, Detroit leaned a bit more on their three-point shooting, but that was a struggle both against the Magic in round one and the Cleveland Cavaliers in round two. Only Cade Cunningham and Duncan Robinson were hitting their triples at a 40% rate in the playoffs, and the Pistons were ultimately outclassed by the Cavs in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. 

In order to avoid a similar fate in future postseason trips, the most clear and direct solution would be for Duren to maintain his consistency and impact level into the playoffs, but that’s easier said than done while catching doubles and receiving drop coverage. Duren feasted on slow-roll sets after setting a screen for Cunningham in the two man game, but that play type simply wasn’t available often enough against the Magic or Cavs. So, Duren may be forced to develop a spot-up jumper to make sure he remains impactful regardless of the defensive coverage. 

The next potential stop-gap for the Pistons would be the emergence of a self-creator outside of Cade Cunningham, such as rookie point guard Ebuka Okorie. Part of Okorie’s hype coming out of Stanford was his ability to dart into the paint and get looks at the rim with regularity, and that’s a skill that the Pistons need to have on the court when Cunningham fights through double-teams. 

Without much scoring help on his team at the college level, Okorie had to act proactively and remain assertive from a scoring standpoint in order to keep the offense flowing. That quality could prove to be useful in the Motor City since the group at times lacks direction when Cunningham is not on the court to initiate the offense. 

But outside of those developments, the easiest way for the Pistons to address their playoff struggles is for the team’s new three-point shooters to properly bed in and develop a rhythm from long-range so that the team has much more perimeter gravity next time around. During the summer, the Pistons were heavily active on the trade market in order to bring John Collins, Isaiah Joe, Taurean Prince and Gary Harris into the Motor City. All four of those NBA vets shot the triple at a 40% clip last season, so they’re established long-range threats at the professional level, and they could be the answer to a problem that Detroit dealt with for all of last season.