Under the Hood - it’s time to see what’s really going on inside this Pistons team.
Cade Cunningham returned to action last night and led Detroit to their 11th straight victory behind 25 points, six rebounds, and 10 assists in 34 minutes. It wasn’t an incredibly efficient night for him, but he showed up when it mattered the most to make sure the Hawks couldn’t claim the lead late in the game.
He hit a clutch turnaround fadeaway from the midrange to put an end to eight straight Atlanta points with just over a minute left.
He followed that up on the next possession with a strong finish at the rim to extend the lead to six. The way he controls his body in the air to still get a quality attempt at the layup is extremely impressive.
As mentioned before, tonight wasn’t an efficient night for Cade. It took him 23 shots to get his 25 points as he shot 44% from the field and 14% from three. Unfortunately, he’s shooting 43.6% from the field on the season along with a career-low 27.5% from three on a career-high 6.7 attempts per game. It’s not great that Cade is seeing his worst efficiency from deep on his highest volume yet.
It was his first game back after missing a few after the Cam Whitmore foul, and if you watch last night’s misses, none of them looked like bad attempts to me. They’re all shots that I would expect him to take again in the flow of the offense.
Frankly, the one he did make seemed like the toughest attempt of them all. These are all shots I want Cade to take - they just didn’t fall yesterday.
Daniss Jenkins over the last five games:
* 20.2 PTS
* 4.0 REB
* 7.6 AST
* 2.0 STL
* 50% from the field
* 44% from deep
Trajan Langdon might’ve found his first diamond in the rough in his Detroit tenure. Not only has Jenkins looked like an NBA-level player over the past two weeks, but he looks like he needs to be a part of the rotation.
He shows such veteran awareness even as a two-way player. He relocates along the perimeter to make himself available to his teammates. He’s fast enough to attack mismatches against big men. He knows when to cut into the lane for an open layup or when to take it coast-to-coast against a weak defender.
He’s the best version of a backup point guard that they’ve got. Per 36 minutes, here are the top four assisters on Detroit:
1. Cade: 9.7 AST
2. Daniss: 7.2 AST
3. Caris: 6.4 AST
4. Ausar: 3.9 AST