FanPost

Pistons Falling Asleep on Defense

Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

Last night, Frank posted Giannis Antetokounmpo's full highlights from the game vs. the Pistons the other night. In the comments on that post we were talking about how, um, well, awful—to put it bluntly—the Pistons’ defense was.

It was especially evident on Gianny’s dunk from late in the second quarter. (1 minute mark in that video Frank posted.) At first, everything looks good from the Pistons’ point of view.

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via i.imgur.com

Zaza—not exactly a huge scoring threat—has the ball in the post and everyone is in good defending position. The good defense doesn’t last for long, however.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who’s responsible for Gianny on the wing, gets caught ball watching big time. As he’s focused on Zaza in the post, Gianny begins to slash to the basket behind KCP’s back. KCP, however, has no idea because he’s staring at the ball.

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via i.imgur.com

Eventually, he realizes what’s happened, but only after Zaza has thrown the pass to a wide-open Gianny. But, KCP has teammates, so someone probably stepped up to help him after his mistake, right?

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via i.imgur.com

Well, no. See, Charlie Villanueva was actually in a pretty good position to help. He was standing just a few feet away and has the play happening right in front of him so he sees what’s going on. But for some reason Charlie V doesn’t move at all until Gianny already has the ball, and by that point it’s too late.

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via i.imgur.com

This isn’t to take away from the nice cut by Gianny or the sweet pass by Zaza, but everything looks easy when your opponent is playing defense like the Pistons were on this possession.

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