Silver Lining in Piston's 5-9 Record

Things aren't as dire as Pistons' 5-9 record suggests
Silver Lining
by Keith Langlois

With Cleveland and Atlanta on the docket for Thanksgiving week, and with no timetable yet established for the return of either Rip Hamilton or Tayshaun Prince, things could still get worse before they get better for the Pistons.

But they are going to get better.

We enumerated a handful of reasons why the 0-4 Western road swing wasn’t the wipeout it could have been in Sunday’s True Blue Pistons, promising a deeper examination today of the problems of the handful of teams with which the Pistons will be fighting for the last four playoff berths in the East.

So here we go. It appears even more of a certainty today than a month ago that the top four seeds in the East, barring major injury calamities, will be doled out to Boston, Cleveland, Orlando and Atlanta. The only thing that’s really changed at the top is Atlanta looks like an even more solid bet to qualify in the top four than the Hawks did coming into the season.

At that time, I had the Pistons as one of six teams – along with Chicago, Washington, Toronto, Philadelphia and Miami – scrapping for those final four Eastern Conference berths. Milwaukee has since stamped itself as worthy of consideration with that group. In fact, the Bucks have a better winning percentage today than both Cleveland and Boston and rank just a shade behind Orlando and Atlanta.

It’s not very likely Milwaukee can keep up with that crowd, but with the emergence of Brandon Jennings and the commitment to defense Scott Skiles has drawn out of the Bucks in his second season, no one would be surprised if Milwaukee hangs around in the playoff race.

Here’s a quick look at that group of teams, going in order of today’s record:


•Milwaukee (8-3) – The Bucks are due to get Michael Redd back tonight after he’s missed the past nine games. But Andrew Bogut is scheduled to miss another month or so and that could cost Milwaukee a handful of games.
While Jennings has been nothing short of a revelation, from his 55-point outburst against Golden State to his 49 percent 3-point shooting, Milwaukee has benefited greatly from the NBA’s easiest schedule. The Bucks’ 11 opponents to date have a puny .366 winning percentage and Milwaukee has played seven of its 11 games at home.

The schedule will catch up to the Bucks sooner or later, but they’ve shown enough that if a few other struggling teams don’t right their ships, Milwaukee could slide into the No. 7 or 8 spot in April.


•Miami (8-5) – Miami, similar to Milwaukee, owes a good deal of its early success to the schedule maker. The Heat have played nine of their 13 games at home against teams with a combined winning percentage of .481. And it continues this way through early January for Miami, which gets 21 of its first 33 games at home – which means 29 of Miami’s final 49 games will be on the road.
In other words, Miami had better have a nice cushion over the No. 9, 10 and 11 playoff seeds by the time the schedule turns on the Heat. And there are cracks showing already. The Heat have dropped four of their last six with the two wins both one-pointers over struggling New Jersey and New Orleans teams.


•Chicago (6-6) – The Bulls, like the Pistons, have played a considerably tougher schedule than most in this group. In fact, Chicago’s opponents’ winning percentage is the highest of the bunch at .579, eight one-thousandths higher than that of Pistons opponents.
Chicago is in the midst of its own Western road swing necessitated by the circus being in town. The Bulls got to start their trip off at Sacramento, winning that game before getting drilled by both the Lakers and Denver. They’ll play at Portland tonight and wrap it up with a Thursday date at Utah and would do well to split that pair.

But there are some troubling signs for the Bulls. They’re getting outscored by four points per game despite their .500 record – in contrast, the Pistons, even after Sunday’s blowout loss at Phoenix, are being outscored by just 2.1 points per game – and they are clearly missing Ben Gordon.

One reason the Bulls felt they could afford to let Gordon walk was last season’s play by John Salmons. They also had Kirk Hinrich returning after missing much of last season with a wrist injury. But Salmons is shooting a dreary .345 overall and .310 from the 3-point line; Hinrich isn’t much better at .360 and .316. And Chicago overall is shooting .432.


•Toronto (6-8) – The Raptors, like the Pistons, took a beating on their recent Western swing, opening with a win against the Clippers before losing to Phoenix, Denver and Utah.
While Chris Bosh is playing his way into the MVP discussion and Toronto’s offense has been as good as expected, fueled by the improved play of 7-footer Andrea Bargnani and the impact of free agent Hedo Turkoglu, the Raptors are among the league’s weakest defensive teams.

They rank 28th in points allowed and 24th in field-goal percentage defense and similarly in every other important defensive metric. Can they remain a serious playoff contender playing defense that poorly? Maybe, but it places great stress on the offense to maintain those levels of efficiency.


•Philadelphia (5-8) – Given the difference in their schedules so far – Philly’s opponents have a combined winning percentage of just .455 and the 76ers have played seven home games – the Pistons are in better shape than Philadelphia at this point.
Philly is getting outscored by 4.6 points a game despite the soft schedule it’s enjoyed so far. Elton Brand has begun to play marginally better, but still appears an odd fit for the personnel around him, and Samuel Dalembert somehow holds on to his starting spot despite minimal productivity and the widespread knowledge that the 76ers are shopping him around the league.

Philly has missed the steady hand of point guard Andre Miller as much as expected. Third-year forward Thaddeus Young, with star potential, has not played as well as Philly had hoped. Second-year big man Mareesse Speights, who was outperforming both Dalembert and Brand, will miss another month or so with a knee injury.


•Washington (3-9) – No team has been a bigger disappointment in the East than the Wizards, who were my pick to slip into the No. 5 playoff berth based on the return to health of Gilbert Arenas and Brendan Haywood; the off-season acquisitions of Mike Miller, Randy Foye and Fabricio Oberto; the development of talented young players JaVale McGee, Andray Blatche and Nick Young; and the hiring of coach Flip Saunders, whose offensive vision seemed the inspired choice to pull all of those pieces together.
But the Wiz have stumbled badly out of the gate, being outscored by 5.5 points per game. The schedule hasn’t been especially kind, with Washington playing five home and seven road games against a composite .549 winning percentage, but Arenas’ erratic play and the apparent head-butting going on between him and some of Washington’s other established stars – Haywood and Caron Butler, most notably – portends more trouble down the road.