Statistics weren’t kind to the Milwaukee Bucks in the preseason, but Scott Skiles – never one to coat with sugar – brushed the numbers aside. And then he summed up the preseason to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel like this: “I suppose every coach, maybe other than Stan (Van Gundy) because Orlando went undefeated, but I would imagine everyone else would say there were good moments, bad moments and things to work on.”

Here are the good moments, bad moments and things to work on for the Pistons with the preseason and training camp behind them and the regular season opening Wednesday in Memphis.

GOOD MOMENTS

1. The Pistons held their first three opponents of the preseason to 40 percent field-goal accuracy. At halftime of their fourth preseason game, Washington was shooting right at that number. So over 14 quarters of basketball, a pretty fair sample size, the Pistons gave themselves some compelling evidence that all the off-season hand-wringing over their ability to defend was overblown. They’ll need to hold on to that feeling, and rediscover the ingredients list, because the next 14 quarters produced wildly divergent results.

   “Defensively, we’re trying to get where we used to be as far as helping each other out,” Tayshaun Prince said after Tuesday’s final preseason practice. “We’ve got a lot of young guys, a lot of new guys, so it’ll be important for us to communicate a lot better as opposed to before, where our chemistry was so good we didn’t have to talk much. We’re trying to build a bond with these new guys.”

2. Rodney Stuckey had two games where he shot a combined 4 of 22, yet still came out of preseason shooting .467 and drew raves from John Kuester for his defense. Will Bynum came to camp 15 pounds lighter than last season and showed in camp that teams without capable defenders at point guard are going to have fits keeping him out of the lane. Kuester feels really, really good about his point guard position with two players, 23 and 26 years old, he’s not afraid to use in tandem.

   “The thing that’s impressed me the most of late,” Kuester said Tuesday, “has been the play of Stuckey running the team and also Will Bynum getting us into our offense.”

   Kuester wants Stuckey and Bynum to fully exploit their advantages – youth, size and strength in Stuckey’s case, explosive quickness in Bynum’s – by pushing the pace at both ends. He can afford to have them do so because of the depth Bynum provides at the position. One answer to the minutes crunch on the perimeter is asking the point guards to go hard full-time, running opposition point guards ragged and getting into the other team’s bench, and keeping both players under 30 minutes a game.

3. Eleven players averaged 16 or more minutes a game in the preseason. It’s not likely Kuester will have more than a nine-man rotation once the Pistons settle into their season, but that’s more to benefit the team than any indication of a dropoff between the eighth player and the 12th. For all of their question marks going into the season, depth isn’t one of them.

   Kuester said often in camp that he had confidence in everyone on the roster to be thrust into any situation. For certain, he’ll play four guards significant minutes every night and up to five big men. There’s no clear-cut backup for Prince at small forward, but along with their depth Kuester has tremendous roster flexibility in that everyone on the roster is capable of playing more than one position.

BAD MOMENTS

1. That second set of 14 quarters was pretty brutal. As impressive as the Pistons were defensively in the first 14 quarters, they were that bad in the next 3½ games, including blowout road losses at Dallas and Memphis and then a troubling home loss to a depleted Minnesota roster – playing without both Al Jefferson and Kevin Love – at The Palace, no less.

   Was it a breakdown in communication, errors in execution, lapses in focus or the growing pains of a team still learning where all the moving parts are supposed to fit? Yes, yes, yes and yes. And an indication that no matter what the schedule says, a team isn’t necessarily a finished product just because the page turns from “preseason” to “regular season.”

   “Our defense is going to be as good as I thought it was going to be as long as we stay committed,” said Ben Wallace, whose importance to the defense was underscored when he returned for the preseason finale at Milwaukee and contributed 14 points, four steals and two blocked shots to a defensive effort that limited the Bucks to 40 percent shooting. “We’ve got guys capable of going out and playing solid on the defensive end, got guys who can guard numerous positions. I think our defense is going to be pretty solid.”

   It will be if they defend as a team, rebound the ball and get back in transition off their own misses.

2. As the standbys, Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince weren’t coasting in the early preseason games, but they were deferential. They wanted to take a half-step back so Kuester could get a better handle on the capabilities and mind-sets of all the new pieces being fit in around them.

   Just when Hamilton was cranking it up to hit the regular season in full stride, Prince stubbed his toe – quite literally. A freak injury early in the fourth preseason game left Prince with a gashed and sprained right big toe. Doesn’t sound like much, but sprained toes can be especially nagging injuries.

   Prince said Tuesday the toe is significantly better than it was a week ago but “nowhere near 100 percent.”

   “I’m not going to use it as an excuse. It’s the first time I’ve had this type of injury since I’ve been here, but with Arnie (Kander) and Mike (Abdenour), they’ll get it situated as best we can so I won’t make it any worse than what it is.”

   No matter what Prince’s point and rebound totals are, his value to the team is higher than ever without a veteran backup behind him and the loss of players like Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess, who stood with him as the glue to a unified team defense.

3. As impressive as Jonas Jerebko was in the preseason, showing the same high motor and combativeness in NBA games as he did in Summer League, the Pistons need veterans Chris Wilcox and Jason Maxiell to legitimately beat the rookie out of minutes.

   And both Maxiell and Wilcox had some nice moments in preseason – Maxiell showing improved range and confidence in his jump shot, Wilcox flashing the breathtaking athleticism on lobs, put-backs and fast breaks that makes him unique among their big men.

   Consistency is their issue. It doesn’t deserve to be categorized as worrisome at this point, after a preseason when everybody’s minutes were fragmented and roles were still up for audition. In however many minutes they get from this point on, though, they have to – as Kuester has said – get their motor running early.

THINGS TO WORK ON

1. The Pistons were a dreadful 3-point shooting team last season, essentially spotting the opposition six points a game, and ranked near the bottom in both accuracy and attempts.

   So far, half their problem is solved. The Pistons ranked fifth in the NBA in preseason 3-point marksmanship, making 38.7 percent of their attempts, well above the league average of 34 percent. But they took only 11.6 attempts per game, second-fewest in the league and even fewer than they took in last year’s regular season by 1½ per game.

   “With our drive and kick game, there are times I want guys to be conscious of it, but I’ve never been a huge, ‘We’ve got to get 30 attempts’ or whatever, ” Kuester said. “We’ve got guys capable of doing it. I’m just not saying, hey, we need a certain number.”

   No question, the Pistons have many more options this season than last, when Rasheed Wallace was far and away their most prolific 3-point shooter. Ben Gordon should assume that role this season, with Charlie Villanueva appearing ready to emerge as another major threat. Rookie Austin Daye is the wild card. If he can force his way into the rotation, Daye has the potential to rival Gordon as a 3-point scorer. In addition, the slashing of Bynum, Stuckey and Gordon should create greater chances for Prince and Hamilton, who are accurate stand-still 3-point shooters.

2. Kuester every day, in one application or another, uses the phrase “work in progress.” His rotation is definitely one of them. He even said Tuesday that, 30 hours from tipoff, it’s still uncertain who’ll be in the starting lineup.

   “Tune in,” Wallace said with a twinkle when I asked him if he knew if he would be in Wednesday’s starting lineup.

   “We’re still debating some of that stuff,” Kuester said. “We’re very close to making that decision, but we’ll have pretty much a definite answer tomorrow night.”

   The things to watch are which combination of big men he starts, how soon and for how long he uses the three-guard lineup, how evenly the minutes at point guard get distributed between Stuckey and Bynum on a consistent basis and how deep into his bench Kuester goes in games still to be decided.

3. Then there’s the coach himself. Kuester has struck every right note since being hired – before camp in laying the groundwork with his veterans, during camp with his attentiveness to every teaching moment yet constantly offering encouragement, during preseason games with game management – but it’s his first time around in the first chair.

   He appears, also, to have the right perspective on the process of enduring the grind, gleaned from 20 years and several stops throughout the league.

   “There’s an excitement when you’re getting ready to play in the first game and your energy level is tremendous,” he said. “The key is being able to sustain that for 82 games, which is hard. But you have to try to be consistent in your approach and understand the highs can’t be too high and the lows can’t be too low.”