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The Detroit Pistons schedule has been hell. For much of the early parts of the season, Detroit was saddled with a top-5 or top-10 strength of schedule. The team has also been saddled with 11 road games including a grueling six-game west coast trip. It was on the tail end of this trip the Pistons finally were able to face some lesser teams but were out of gas and out of sorts and dropped contests to the Sacramento Kings and (shudder) the Los Angeles Lakers.
Luckily, December has arrived and the Pistons are getting some holiday cheer in the form of a less burdensome slate of games. I won't go game by game (that's revken's territory) but number cruncher John Schuhmann of NBA.com has an interesting breakdown of every team's December schedule.
The Pistons get to play nine home games in December, including seven of their next nine games overall. The overall slate of games is tough, with nine games against teams with winning records, but Detroit's opponents are not world beaters on offense (ranking 11th out of 15 in the East in average offensive rating), and with the Pistons' superior defense they should at least have it chance in nearly every game.
In fact, in Schuhmann's adjusted net rating, which factors in offensive and defensive ratings as well as home/road splits and back-to-back games, Detroit has the third-easiest December slate. Only the Bulls and the Knicks have easier schedules.
That being said, the Pistons aren't going anywhere unless they fix their dreadful offense, easy schedule or not. Schuhmann's original chart recreated below.
