January 23rd - New Orleans Pelicans VS Detroit Pistons - 22-25
Missing AD last game didn't seem to have too much impact, as we steamrolled the ineffectual Grizzlies so hard that their next move was to put Gasol and Conley on the block for trades. So that's nice. Tonight we play the 20-26 Detroit Pistons, at home. They have gone 2-3 in their last five, and their two wins were both by only five points, so they aren't looking great at the moment. We also aren't looking great at the moment, so it actually matches up pretty well with us.
AD will be out again tonight, and it looks like Drummond is going to play (although don't quote me on that for certain) so we're a little outmatched. Hopefully Okafor can dig deep and do some rebounding tonight, cause that's usually not his strength. We're gonna need the entire team crashing the boards. Let's look at their team:
Offensive Rating: 25th
Defensive Rating: 11th
Boards per game: 20th
Assists per game: 27th
Steals per game: 24th
Blocks per game: 29th
2pt percentage: 25th
3pt percentage: 30th
That's right, Detroit is the single worst team from three this season. That should mean that even with our bad perimeter defense, we should be able to do a solid job of covering them. Please. They aren't very good anywhere, to be honest, although they have a reasonably good defensive rating. They don't get a lot of steals or blocks, and while they are 7th in the league in Offensive Rebounds, their defensive rebounding is poor enough that their overall rebounding is dragged down a lot. We should be able to feast on the offensive glass tonight, if the guys really go after it. Theirs is not a motion heavy offense with a lot of passing, so again, that should make it easier on our mediocre defense to handle it.
Their main guys are Drummond, Griffin, and Reggie Jackson. Between the three of them, they have pretty much one superstar. Blake is averaging 26/8/5, and having his best season in years. He's only shooting 36% from three, but that definitely is enough to make sure that you need to guard him, and he's had a few big games to win the Pistons more than they really should have done. Without his occasional explosions, Detroit is probably a 15 win team at this point.
Biggest threat to us on the glass is obviously Drummond, who is averaging 14.9 boards per game, including a ridiculous 5.2 offensive boards. If he can be even slightly hampered on that end of the floor, it will hamstring their already poor offense and really open things up. Honestly, being gifted games against two of the league's worst offenses (Memphis and Detroit) just as AD goes out is probably a lot more luck than we deserve.
Jackson is having a bad season. He's averaging about 15ppg, but on 39% from the floor and 33% from three. He's having a really bad time, and he's not exactly distributing the ball at a high rate to make up for it either. Jrue shouldn't have too much of a defensive assignment this game with Jackson, so he should be able to focus his priority on scoring and making things happen on the other end. Hopefully we'll see a return of Payton's confidence against such a poor guard lineup, and he can contribute at a high level again like he was doing earlier in his games for us.
Let's go and #DoItBig
