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Well. That sucked.
The Detroit Pistons lost a(nother) winnable game, dropping 109-89 against the Chicago Bulls to fall to 4-10 on the rapidly aging season. At least this loss was due different reasons - the defense was adequate tonight but Detroit just didn’t make any shots! That’s exciting and fun, right? Blergh.
Shooting sub-34% from the floor will lose you any game, any time. Blake Griffin going 4-15 and looking... worse than he should after four days off is a big cause for concern.
Blake Griffin is a -33 lololol
— Jason Patt (@Bulls_Jay) November 21, 2019
The team’s inability to break the Bulls’ trapping defensive scheme - partially because they lack the ballhandlers, partially because they seemed somehow unprepared for it - is a big cause for concern. The way his teammates’ inability to break the trap sucked the life out of Andre Drummond in the second half is a big cause for concern. The fact that the starting lineup combined for 13 of the team’s 16 turnovers remains a big cause for concern.
The fact that this team is 4-10 and still within two games of the seven seed isn’t a cause for concern, but it could be:
It's gonna be real ugly at the bottom of the east BTW - John Collins is still out 15ish games, Vuc got hurt pretty badly tonight (per reports), we are the only team Chicago can play well against, and Charlotte either wins by 2 or loses by 20 with no in-between
— Lazarus Jackson (@lazchance) November 21, 2019
If the Pistons keep hanging around, this situation reeks of a win-now trade that sacrifices a future draft asset to bring in a player that elevates the Pistons, but not past the seventh seed, not past the first round of the playoffs, and into the kind of fan-induced apathy that can spoil even the most historic of franchises.
Good basketball is it’s own reward. Bad basketball is it’s own punishment. The Pistons need to decide which brand of basketball they would rather subject us to.