Blake Griffin, Andre Drummond too strong for struggling Cavaliers

Game Day Film Room will be a strategy-based film review segment. Don’t expect highlight reel dunks or blocks. Do expect a deeper look at Pistons’ concepts both good and bad.

Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond combined for 52 points and 32 rebounds as the Detroit Pistons overpowered the Kevin Love-less Cleveland Cavaliers winning 110 - 103.

Griffin remains the Queen of Pistons’ offensive chessboard

Blake Griffin’s 26 points came on 9-of-13 shooting including 4-of-5 beyond the three-point line.

Early offense:

In the halfcourt:

Equally important is Griffin’s desire to manipulate the defense in a way we DBBers haven’t witnessed in an oh-so-long time. Whether it’s inducing a double-team or a simple two-man game, Griffin effortlessly sets his teammates up for bucket-getting success.

Double-team:

Two-man game:

Some of those possessions, Griffin will up his traditional box score numbers while many of them go unnoticed by numbers-only scouting. What makes Griffin so special are the possessions in which zero box score credit finds Griffin. Kinda like this:

Jackson is wide-TF open because the Cavaliers were too busy rotating and recovering.

Look, I LOVE reminding people when I’m right. I cannot wait to obnoxiously yell “I told you so” as loud as I can to whomever will listen. I was on board with the Griffin trade since day one and sang his praises all summer but in no way, shape or form did I expect this type of production.

I know, I know, it’s only been four games, long season, blah, blah, blah.

But.

At what point do the “it’s only been X amount of games” responses get thrown out the window?

10?

20?

Assuming the three-point percentage falls back down to earth, is there any other part of Griffin’s game that isn’t sustainable?

Drummond doing Drummond things

26 points on 11-of-16 shooting, 22 rebounds, 0-0 from three-point range.

Drummond influenced offense:

Establishing early position:

Love it.

Hey, why is there no Cleveland rim protection on this? The defense is essentially set, what gives? Oh, Drummond is in the slot as Griffin slams it home. In other words, there is SPACE:

Again, green lighting three-point Drummond isn’t about Dre’s faulty three-point stroke, it’s about space. A handful, and that’s all it’s been so far, of possession-ending plays each game in which Drummond is floating along the three-point line isn’t the worst thing in the world.

How many other players in the league get these boards?

We knock him (a lot) but boy-oh-boy is he a load. When he wants to be, of course.

Early offense

My definition of “early offense” is any possession ending field goal attempt deriving from the initial action after crossing the timeline. Yours may be different. We’ve seen Griffin race up the sideline to establish early post position and find great success. Similarly, these early offense Pistol looks are treating them well during the young season:

Rapid fire

Oh boy, not this shit again:

No!

Quite possibly Stanley Johnson’s most professional move of this career:

More of that, please.

Still going under on Ish:

I get it, though. Will it change?

Non-Griffin-Drummond influenced halfcourt offense:

Defense is still an issue

Griffin, Drummond and the entire Pistons team still nee.....

No, not again! Looks like we ran out of time. I was just going to sink my teeth into Detroit’s dismal defensive effort. Poor shot clock management on my part. I promise you, we’ll get to it.

4-0 with a soft schedule, I’ll take it. For now.