Under the Hood - it’s time to see what’s really going on inside this Pistons team.
The spacing looked a lot better last night than it did against the Cavs, and JB Bickerstaff has a cool set that he utilized at least twice last night when both Stew and Duren were on the floor together.
The set is pretty simple - it’s a double on-ball screen for Cade, first from Stew and then from Duren.
Both corners are filled and Stew will pop to space the floor while Cade and Duren run their patented pick-and-roll.
Once Cade gets around the screen, it’s up to him to read the defense and make the right play. He has three teammates behind the arc ready to shoot, he has a rolling lob threat, and he has the ability to get directly to the basket.
Firing on All Cylinders
Let’s look at that set in live action.
Cade gets two points on this possession with a floater over Goga Bitadze. Paolo Banchero slid over pretty far to help take the Jalen Duren lob threat away, and a skip pass to Ron Holland for an open corner three would’ve also been a great option. We know Ron loves the corner three.
JB Bickerstaff went back to that same set in the second half.
Orlando defends this one a little differently as both corner defenders don’t help. Banchero drops from the top of the key leaving Stew wide open for a great look. Cade was on a mission, however, and was able to get to the basket to draw the foul and get the and-one basket.
It’s a simple, but effective, set to get a spaced out floor for Cade with the ball in his hands to do what he does best.
Transmission Trouble
There’s not a whole lot that goes wrong when you put up 135 points in a basketball game. So, let’s take a look at the season statistics from the rotation over their first five games (PTS/REB/AST on FG%/3P%/FT%):
Cade: 22.2/5.6/8.2 on 39.6%/24.2%/81.8%
Tobias: 14.0/6.0/3.2 on 42.4%/30.4%/100%
Duncan: 10.0/2.4/1.2 on 39.5%/38.7%/80.0%
Ausar: 13.8/7.4/4.0 on 46.7%/22.2%/61.1%
Duren: 14.8/10.0/1.2 on 57.1%/0.0%/83.9%
Ron: 11.6/3.2/1.8 on 46.5%/33.3%/84.6%
Stew: 9.2/6.6/1.4 on 44.7%/58.3%/50.0%
Javonte: 5.0/2.4/1.0 on 33.3%/41.7%/66.7%
So, thoughts? What overreactions should we make to this extremely small sample size?
Mechanic’s Note
I saw Ausar hit another mid-range jumper last night, so here’s a highlight reel of all his middy makes from his first five games.