The Detroit Pistons have an uphill battle going against the Golden State Warriors on Monday, and the task got even tougher as the team has lost another player to the injury/unavailable list.
Veteran forward Joe Harris, the team’s best (only?) 3-point shooter with a track record is out tonight with a right shoulder sprain. He joins fellow veteran shooting options Bojan Bogdanovic, Alec Burks and Monte Morris as unavailable.
Jaden Ivey could also miss his second consecutive game with an illness.
That makes five definite rotation players who will miss time and also a reliable shooting option for spot minutes in Harris.
Those minutes will likely be absorbed by Marcus Sasser, the impressive rookie out of Houston and perhaps two-way player Stanley Umude. In Sunday’s game against the Suns, Harris played 13 minutes and Umude played 4 minutes off the bench.
Cade Cunningham played a game-high 38 minutes and has seemed to be visibly gassed toward the end of games this season. This does not seem to be a night where they will be able to sit Cade, one of the team’s only reliable 3-point shooters, very much.
Sasser played 29 minutes, largely absorbing Ivey’s spot in the rotation. Even as his minutes have gone up, his effectiveness has not diminished. He played 29 minutes and scored 22 points, including hitting four of his six 3-point attempts. The young Houston product just never seems phased.
It seems he will continue to be thrown into the fire. If he continues to perform well then the drumbeat to get the rookie into the starting lineup will only grow louder.