FAST BREAKDOWN
Three quick observations from Saturday night’s 119-107 loss to the Chicago Bulls at Little Caesars Arena
RUNNING OF THE BULLS – Allowing 40-point quarters is not conducive to winning basketball as it turns out. The Pistons hadn’t given up any such quarters until this week and now they’ve allowed three different opponents to do so in the past four games. Washington on Monday in the first quarter, Toronto on Wednesday in the second quarter and Chicago on Saturday in the third all scored at least 40 points. The Bulls hit 14 of 18 shots and 6 of 8 triples in the third quarter, outscoring the Pistons 40-30, to take a four-point lead – and it took two Markieff Morris triples in the last 10 seconds of the quarter to whittle a 10-point deficit to four. Zach Lavine’s triple with a little less than eight minutes to play broke a 96-all tie and put Chicago in the lead for good. Lavine and rookie Coby White both hit 5 of 7 triples for Chicago with Lavine scoring 33 points and White 19 in just 18 minutes. The 3-point line, the strength of the Pistons offense this season, had become a vulnerability for them this week. They’d shot 28.5 percent for the previous three games and seen their opponents shoot 42 percent. The Pistons were better this time – 46 percent, hitting 16 of 35 – but the Bulls were scorching, finishing at 51 percent from three at 18 of 35. Markieff Morris scored a season-high 23 points, hitting 7 of 12 triples, to lead the Pistons. Andre Drummond finished with 19 points, 14 rebounds and five steals.
MURPHY’S LAW – The Pistons aren’t playing this season under NBA rules so much as under Murphy’s Law: whatever can go wrong will. Fully a third of their 15-man roster was unavailable to Dwane Casey for the season’s 30th game and that included two of the biggest names, Blake Griffin and Derrick Rose. Griffin missed Friday’s game at Boston – and he’s now missed half of the 30 games – with knee soreness but Saturday’s absence was due to the flu, Casey said. Rose was listed as probable on the injury report with left knee soreness but was held out, missing his sixth game. Luke Kennard returned after missing Friday’s game with soreness in both knees, the third game he’s missed with the same affliction. In addition to Griffin and Rose, the Pistons were without Reggie Jackson (28 missed games), Khyri Thomas and Christian Wood. Wood has missed the last two games after suffering a left knee bone bruise in Wednesday’s loss to Toronto. Without Rose and Wood and with Morris playing mostly with the starting unit, the second unit lacks the scoring punch that had made it so effective.
FRAZIER TIME – With Reggie Jackson and Derrick Rose both missing, Dwane Casey had little choice but to get minutes from Tim Frazier at point guard. Frazier hasn’t played much this season – he’s 12th in minutes played with 147 coming into Saturday’s game – but he gave Casey more than he could have hoped for, especially considering he hadn’t played more than seven minutes in a game since logging 13 at Miami on Nov. 12. Frazier helped put the Pistons in position to win with a tough runner with the shot clock running down early in the fourth quarter and then a clever setup for an Andre Drummond layup to tie the game with nine minutes to play. Frazier set season highs in points (13), assists (nine) and minutes (28) while committing just one turnover. Frazier played 13 consecutive first-half minutes and scored nine points and, more importantly, the Pistons committed only one turnover while he was on the floor after they’d committed five in the first eight minutes coming off of a season-worst 25 turnovers in Boston on Friday.