The Detroit Pistons built their game plan around containing Victor Wembanyama, but the reason the San Antonio Spurs are one of the best teams in the league is that it isn’t all about Wemby. The Spurs had everything working in a 114-103 win over the Pistons in front of a raucous and then quite dejected crowd at Little Caesars Arena.
The bottom line is the Spurs surrounded Wembanyama with shooters and ball handlers, and those players moved the ball and hit their shots. The Pistons have a lack of shooting
and ball handling around Cade Cunningham, and it was on full display on a night when Cade struggled and San Antonio’s elite defense was able to control the paint in the second half.
Wembanyama was just 6-of-16 from the floor, and Cunningham was limited to 5-of-26. They both found ways to be impactful through passing, rebounding and shot blocking (three for Cunningham and six for Wembanyama). The surrounding cast delivered this win for the Spurs by getting plenty of open looks, and making a ton of them. The Spurs hit 18 three-pointers on the night compared to just seven for the Pistons. That was the ballgame right there.
If you told me before the game that San Antonio’s Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie were going to shoot a combined 12-for-19 from deep tonight, I would tell you that the Spurs were going to win that game. And that’s exactly what happened. Sometimes basketball isn’t that complicated.
Vassell was the high-scorer on the night with 28 points and seven made threes, while Champagnie had 17, and Steph Castle had 16 and 11 assists. Wembanyama was bottled up on offense for the most part, but he still had an otherworldly 21 points, 17 rebounds, and six blocks.
The Pistons were able to stay in the game through three quarters via its signature — flying all over the floor, defending their butts off, and getting into the teeth of San Antonio’s defense. Jalen Duren led the Pistons with 25 points and 14 rebounds, and Ron Holland scored 15 and added 11 boards. But it was a night when Tobias Harris was invisible (1-of-6 for four points) and Ausar Thompson was played off the floor. Thompson only played 18 minutes and was subbed at the 8:14 mark of the third quarter with the Spurs up 63-62. He never returned to the game.
Either Thompson did something JB Bickerstaff really didn’t like or he had already determined that the paint was going to be off limits the rest of the night and needed to try to source some offense and couldn’t afford to put the non-shooter back on the floor. Whatever the reason, the offense never really came. Detroit was limited to 20 points in the third quarter and went up by as many as 15 points.
Cunningham struggled with fouls, struggled with his shot, struggled with ball pressure, and Detroit didn’t really have the ability to turn to anyone else to make things happen. The magic dust has worn off Daniss Jenkins a little bit, who still plays hard and mostly plays smart, but is not a reliable scoring threat. Caris LeVert played like Caris LeVert. Hit a couple of tough shots and did heinous things with the ball in his hands. Javonte Green is a defender and spot-up shooter only, and Ron Holland is all hustle; you can’t run plays through him.
That is a recipe for tough nights against the elite teams who are locked in, and it leaves Detroit with a lot of pondering to do, because this is exactly the kind of game you’re going to need to figure out how to win come playoff time.
The Pistons have the best record in the NBA against the league’s best teams, we know they know how to win close games, and they have an elite player in Cunningham they can turn to in the clutch. That’s great in the regular season, but Detroit needs to understand how to win playoff basketball. Because tonight had the look and feel of playoff basketball, and the Pistons came up way short.
Luckily, Detroit still has 26 games to figure it out.
