The Portland Trail Blazers have dropped two games in a row to two of the best teams in the NBA at the end of a long road trip, and there’s no shame in that. As they return to the comfy confines of the Moda Center at One Center Court, the Detroit Pistons will be waiting.
For those who haven’t been following the drama of the Eastern Conference this season, these are not the same Pistons who won a combined 74 games the previous four years. Free from the oddly disengaged coaching of the once-great Monty Williams, Detroit and current Head Coach J.B. Bickerstaff are forging their path forward with budding superstar Cade Cunningham and Malik Beasley, Jalen Duran, and Ausar Thompson in support.
Portland Trail Blazers (28-36 -3.7 Net Rating) vs. Detroit Pistons (35-29 +1.6 Net Rating)
Sun. March 9 @ 6pm Pacific
How to watch via antenna or cable: See your options on the Rip City Television Network
How to watch via streaming: BlazerVision in Oregon and Washington; NBA TV elsewhere (also available on streaming via NBA TV on League Pass)
Trail Blazers injuries: Jerami Grant (day-to-day); Robert Williams III, Deandre Ayton, Matisse Thybulle (out).
Pistons injuries: Jaden Ivey (out).
SBN Affiliate:Detroit Bad Boys
Since December 19, Detroit has the NBA’s sixth-best net rating to pair with the NBA’s fifth-best defensive rating, and while they’ve dropped their last two games to the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers, they’re just a week and a half removed from an eight-game winning streak.
For Portland to win this game, they will need to find ways to slow Cunningham’s near-MVP attack (25.6 points, 6.1 boards, and 9.3 dimes per game) and find enough offense of their own to get over the hump. For that, perhaps another banner game from Shaedon Sharpe is in the cards, as he’s averaged 23.8 points on over 50% shooting his last six games, five of which included his return to the starting lineup.
Tonight is also special for an unrelated reason: the Blazers will be celebrating the late great Bill Walton, with Walton’s family in the house and every fan receiving a tie-dyed headband, among other acknowledgements. While we don’t know whether Oregon Senator Ron Wyden will be in attendance, he did have plenty of kind words for Walton when he joined Conor and I on the podcast a few weeks ago.
Last Time They Played...
...the Blazers blew a 21-point second-quarter lead back in early January, falling to the Pistons on the road in Detroit 118-115. The game featured a season-high 36 points from Anfernee Simons, as well as an unremarkable scoreless effort from Scoot Henderson in his 19 minutes.
Reader Questions
Before most games, we ask you all to make our previews better by asking us questions! Keep your eyes peeled for posts just like this to add your questions and (possibly) have them answered right here in these very previews!
From BALLofFIRE:
I’m happy seeing Sharpie and Scooter developing. The day is coming soon when they will be actual starters (/s) These young guys have the potential to be really good to great. If they fully develop they could be “generational players”. That gets me wondering how many generational players are there in the NBA at any given time?
Great question! It’s subjective, but the way I think about it, “generational” means “you cannot tell the story of the NBA during a given time period without this player.” And I’m choosing to interpret your question by “in the NBA at any given time” as “these players are CURRENTLY playing at a generation level.”
To that end, it’s probably bounced between zero and a half-dozen or so for any given. Recency bias might have us thinking it’s more, but I’m not so sure. Take today’s NBA for example: how many TRULY generational players are at the peak of their powers? Jokic, Giannis... uh... that’s kind of it. Is Jayson Tatum a GENERATIONAL player? Has Shae Gilgeous-Alexander gotten their yet? LeBron is too old. Wemby is too young. And others just don’t make the cut for me.
From DarthKader3:
Why does the team seem to hit such a wall, especially offensively when Deni sits (by my count, 1-4 in games he’s missed due to injury, averaging 103.2 points per game, scoring more than 103 only twice, in scoot’s 39 point game against the nets, and the recent road game against the nets), and what can be done to compensate for that apparent lack of firepower to stay competitive against the pistons assuming Deni’s Still out.
Well, you kind of answered your own question: you can’t fill in a talent gap with thin air. Deni does a lot to make this team play at their best, and I appreciate the stats you pulled to help quantify that point. The only thing I can think of is whether Billups would be willing to have Dalano Banton play a quasi-Deni role and tell him to just keep attacking on offense to get the defense off the Blazers other players, but Banton isn’t Deni, so I’m not sure how well that would work.
From RedUniInLA:
Can we get Detroit to lure Chauncey over as their coach this off season before the Blazers can exercise their option on the final year of his contract, or extend it? What would it take to incentivize the Pistons to do this?
Their coach? No. As part of their front office? Maybe! Look, I don’t want to belabor the Chaucey stuff, but as part of researching for this preview I learned the following and just want to share here. Detroit head coach J.B. Bickerstaff was an assistant coach for 11 years before getting a shot at head coaching, then spent three more years as an Associate Head Coach.
Billups was an assistant coach for one year before becoming the Blazers’ head coach. The end.
From Layman’s terms:
There’s a knocking in my engine only when I push the gas. I’d that a piston? Could a good draft pick fix that issue?
...this is technically related to “the pistons” so I have to allow it. A knocking noise usually means the fuel and air aren’t mixing properly before combusting, and so it’s much more likely a fuel injector or a dirty cylinder issue than a piston problem. Unfortunately, a draft pick cannot fix this.
About the Opponent:
Sean Corp of Detroit Bad Boys wrote about Pistons third-year center Jalen Duren and how he’s turned his season around since a mid-December nadir:
Prior to Dec. 19, the Pistons ranked 18th in defense. In the 34 games since then, they rank fourth and sport the fifth-best net rating in the NBA. There is no reason to discount the incredible impact Ausar Thompson has made as the team’s best perimeter defender, and Isaiah Stewart remains one of the best defensive reserves in the NBA. But none of that matters if Duren isn’t stepping up as the starter his team needs him to be.
Since that last loss to the Jazz, Duren has turned his season around and, with it, potentially his future with the Pistons. Since Dec. 20 (min. 20 games), Duren ranks second among centers in rebounding percentage and true shooting percentage. He’s also communicating better with teammates, blocking more shots, and becoming more comfortable as an off-ball facilitator. “It was me knowing myself, gotta pick it up if we want to do what we want to do,” he said. “Holding myself accountable and knowing how I can affect the game and coming in there and trying to do that every night,” Duren told the Free Press.
Aaron Kellerstrass of Piston Powered outlines the dilemma the Pistons have in the upcoming offseason as they juggle their books and make decisions on which players to extend and which to let go:
The Pistons don’t have to make a decision on this right away, as Duren is still under contract for next season and they could just let him play it out without an extension, which would obviously lead to an offseason of speculation that could leak into next year. They could sign him to an extension this summer, but the number the Pistons are comfortable with and the number Duren wants may be far apart. Detroit could also move him if they don’t think Duren is the long-term guy. It’s a tough call for the front office, but to me, they almost have to offer him some kind of extension next summer, even if it’s one that might be lower than he wants. They don’t want his contract situation tainting the chemistry that has developed this season.
But they can’t go too high with Duren, as he’s still just a guy who dunks most of the time on offense (though his passing game has been good lately) and has limitations on defense, especially away from the hoop. There is also his fit with another non-shooter in Ausar Thompson, and given the way Thompson has improved the defense, I’d have to think they’d stick with him if it came down to a choice between the two. It’s a tricky situation for the Pistons to navigate, but they do have to ask these roster questions, namely whether they think the core of Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren is one that can play together long term.