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Only 12 games remain in this year's regular season. While the Detroit Pistons' NBA Playoffs and home advantage spots are likely secured, they still want to get a huge morale win. Coach J.B. Bickerstaff has not been shy at admitting that they want to notch the first seed in the Eastern Conference. This challenge might be harder as the days go by because of not having Cade Cunningham while the Boston Celtics have been on a four-game tear as of late.
Fans should not worry. The Pistons head coach has a solid plan for that and for a successful postseason to materialize.
Pistons plan on changing schemes to ease Cunningham-less squad
Notably, Cunningham has been diagnosed with a collapsed lung. There is still not a definite timeline for his injury return but it might extend into the NBA Playoffs. Coach Bickerstaff knows the difficulty of winning games without their primary ballhandler and a great perimeter defenders. This is why he plans to tighten up on defense more than ever, via Jeff Zillgitt of NBA.com.
"A big picture thing for us is the goal to win the possession game If you’re getting steals, if you’re getting blocks, it lowers the amount of shot attempts that people get. We try to limit that as best we possibly can. It’s everybody taking up a little bit more. You’re not going to be able to replace what he does individually. But collectively, if everybody just plays to the best of their abilities and plays to their strength and ticks it up a little bit more, collectively we can get the job done. And we’ve proven that all year," Bickerstaff said.
The Pistons know that they will have to fill Cunningham's void through committee. This is exactly what they did against a postseason-hungry Golden State Warriors. Coach Bickerstaff's schemes prevented the Warriors from gaining any sort of momentum because they generated 16 steals to notch 32 points off turnovers. Not to mention, the Pistons also bothered nearly all of the Warriors shots which led them to only get a 46.1% field goal percentage and a subpar 36.4% from beyond the arc.
On the offensive side of things, Ausar Thompson, Tobias Harris, Daniss Jenkins, and even Paul Reed became offensive facilitators. These four guys combined for 20 assists. There is still much work to do because the Pistons shot at a horrid 23.8% clip from three-point range without Cunningham. Coach Bickerstaff admitted that those woes will be tougher to patch up.
"Tough for Cade to go through what he’s going through now — how important he is to the team, but how important being with his team is to him It doesn’t make it easy. He’s a huge part of what we do from a leadership standpoint. Obviously, the talent’s there, but just being around him every single day makes people’s days better. And we’ll miss that. But it’s our responsibility to keep pushing forward. And we know he’s there rooting for us, pulling for us. When he’s around, he’ll be cheering for us, help coaching, leading, all those things," the Pistons coach added.
The Pistons are still four games ahead of the Celtics in the standings. If they keep this defensive intensity up while also figuring out how to operate the offense better, they are a team to fear in the NBA Playoffs with or without Cade Cunningham.
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