The Detroit Pistons didn’t make any splashes on Media Day. The organization seemed determined not to, in fact. The players talked about growing their games, competing for roles, and excitement about playing for new coach Monty Williams.
Nobody made any bold proclamations, nobody seemed discontent despite perhaps finding themselves on the outside looking in at rotation battles, and nobody mentioned that p word — playoffs (or play-in).
They did mention the D word, though. Defense. Early and often. The players talked about it unprompted. It was the focal point of everything Troy Weaver focused in on. For Williams, despite being a coach extremely well respected for his offensive schemes, he squarely focused on defense, and the need for his players to buy in and perform if they wanted playing time.
“I think we can guard the ball better than we’ve shown, and one of our rules is if you can’t guard two dribbles, you probably can’t play,” Williams said at Media Day, per the Free Press. “That’s just the way it is.
“If you’re a blow-by guy on defense, you’re going to have a tough time playing because we have to play great defense. For me, the best offense is a defensive stop. And the more stops we can get, we can get out and play free.”
Jaden Ivey is talking about his biggest step his sophomore season needing to come at the defensive end, and that the team wants to and needs to excel on that end of the floor.
“I feel like we’re starting to feel that presence where we can be a really good defensive team, so we just gotta keep being able to work hard and trust what Monty’s building for us,” Ivey said to the Free Press. “He’s been teaching us a lot, all of the coaches. We’re really excited.”
Weaver, meanwhile, said that this season is about “discipline, development, and defense.” I might be projecting a bit, but I’d wager that Weaver doesn’t view those three concepts as mutually exclusive.
On rookie Ausar Thompson’s potential for being ready to contribute meaningfully on Day 1, Weaver focused on his D: “Coach Williams would be the one to ask, but, defensively, I think he’ll be ready.”
Among Williams’ many coaching accolades, perhaps the one that goes the most unsung is the Suns’ consistent performance on both ends of the floor. Everyone thinks about his quick-decision offense that was finely calibrated around Chris Paul and Devin Booker. Lost is that he routinely commanded teams that held their own on defense.
During his head coaching stint with the Phoenix Suns, he took a team that was 19-63 and ranked 29th on defense and brought them up to 34 wins and a 17th-ranked defense. That rose to 9th a season later, then third, then seventh.
The Pistons haven’t had an above-average defensive rating since 2018-19 in Dwane Casey’s first year.
For as much as we talk about the need for Cade Cunningham to hit the deep ball more consistently, for Ivey to limit mistakes, for the team to figure out some offensive game plan around its mismatched talent, the focus is on bringing the D back to Deeeetroit Basketball.