Detroit Pistons

At some point over the off-season – some time after the Pistons won the lottery in June and likely before they gathered for Summer League in August – Dwane Casey had made the decision. Two decisions, really.

Dwane Casey keeps saying the Pistons have to hang their hat on defense. Through nine games, the Pistons rank 21st defensively, which suggests their hat rests on a shaky hook. But scratch the surface and the picture looks a little different.

After a murderer’s row of opponents – NBA title favorite Brooklyn, reigning NBA champion Milwaukee, title aspirant Philadelphia and Brooklyn again – over a six-day span, playing a back to back, the Pistons got to the fourth quarter Friday wheezing and trailing by 16 points.

Three quick observations from Friday night’s 96-90 loss to the Brooklyn Nets at Little Caesars Arena FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHT – Friday’s game at Little Caesars Arena was following the same script as Thursday’s – the Pistons battling an Eastern Conference favorite on even terms for the first half, then stumbling out of the blocks at…

Young teams experience good moments. Getting to good games is another matter. The Pistons got halfway there in Cade Cunningham’s third game, scoring 66 points in a first half they can dream on. The second half started with turnovers on two of the first three possessions and the Pistons never could pull themselves out of…

Three quick observations from Thursday night’s 109-98 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers at Little Caesars Arena HALF-WAY THERE – Dwane Casey said before Thursday’s loss that he would be more patient with his young core with regard to considering lineup tweaks than he would be with a more veteran team, especially given where the Pistons…

Cade Cunningham, Josh Jackson, Luka Garza and the early-season shooting and scoring struggles are all on the docket in this week’s edition of Pistons Mailbag. Ken (Dharamsala, India): Josh Jackson has been playing some quality minutes on both sides of the ball. Has anybody east of Kathmandu noticed, ya think?

History made it abundantly evident there would be nights like these for the Pistons. Bracing for them doesn’t make their reality any easier to digest. “I’m embarrassed. We should be embarrassed for the Detroit Pistons brand,” Dwane Casey said after his young lineup fell 117-89 to the reigning NBA champions who bore little resemblance to…

FAST BREAKDOWN Three quick observations from Tuesday night’s 117-89 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks at Little Caesars Arena GROWING PAINS – It looked like a game Dwane Casey’s young team might steal when the reigning NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks showed up at Little Caesars Arena without a healthy segment of the roster that made the…

DETROIT – November 1, 2021 – Today, the Detroit Pistons unveiled the 2021-22 Nike NBA City Edition uniform, designed to celebrate the organization’s rich history and the NBA’s 75th anniversary season.

Dwane Casey, like his 29 peers across the NBA, mines something of value from every game. He’ll need to do some furious digging to find it from Sunday’s loss at Brooklyn when the Nets set a franchise record by hitting 65.3 percent of their shots – bettering a mark also set against the Pistons from…

Three quick observations from Sunday night’s 117-91 loss to the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center NOTHING BUT NETS – The Brooklyn Nets looked like the team Las Vegas oddsmakers and a poll of NBA general managers peg as the overwhelming title favorites when the Pistons got their first glimpse of them this season, shooting 67…

Cade Cunningham figures to have a direct impact on most everything the Pistons plan to do for their next generation of basketball, but it was his indirect impact that keyed the first Pistons win of the season in his NBA debut.

Three quick observations from Saturday night’s 110-103 win over the Orlando Magic at Little Caesars Arena A DANDY DEBUT – Forty years to the day since Isiah Thomas made his Pistons debut, the most ballyhooed Pistons draft pick since, Cade Cunningham, got his feet wet in the first Pistons win of the season. Even if…

The story of the season so far for the Pistons has been Cade, delayed. Dwane Casey doesn’t want to get caught up in the narrative that whenever the NBA’s No. 1 pick debuts, the Pistons will automatically do a 180.

The Pistons 3-point shooting needed a booster shot – and it finally came. It was a case of too little, too late to save them from remaining winless, dropping a 110-102 game to Philadelphia. But they hit 7 of 11 from distance in the fourth quarter to cut a 22-point deficit to five and it…

Three quick observations from Thursday night’s 110-102 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers at Wells Fargo Center SEMI-HAPPY RETURN – The Pistons didn’t get the win, but they did get Jerami Grant back in the lineup – and there’s the potential for Cade Cunningham to join him to complete the Pistons starting lineup for the first…

Cade Cunningham and Killian Hayes are the fruits of the last two trips to the NBA draft lottery for the Pistons and they’re the hot topics of discussion in this week’s edition of Pistons Mailbag.

While the Pistons wait for their 2021 No. 1 pick’s debut, their 2020 lottery pick showed up on Monday night to provide the silver lining to the season’s third straight defeat out of the chute. Killian Hayes, who endured rough outings in consecutive losses to Chicago to open the season, found his footing on Monday…

Three quick observations from Monday night’s 122-104 loss to the Atlanta Hawks at State Farm Arena BIG VOID – Missing arguably their two best players – No. 1 pick Cade Cunningham and leading scorer Jerami Grant – wasn’t the formula the Pistons required to break out of their early-season scoring doldrums. Averaging 85 points a…