Three quick observations from Sunday night’s 122-112 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies at Little Caesars Arena
EARLY TONE ESTABLISHED – Since suffering five defeats of 20 or more points among their first eight losses of the season, the Pistons coming into Sunday had only one such loss in the last 10 – one Dwane Casey was willing to write off to the grinding effects of the six-game road trip that preceded last week’s 30-point loss, the season’s most lopsided, to New York. Eight of the other nine losses came by single digits. Against a physically imposing Memphis team, it looked like the Pistons might have been headed for a thumping Sunday. And then it didn’t. And then it did. They trailed by 19 nine minutes into the first quarter. They whittled it to four over the next seven minutes. That was the story of the game. Memphis used a combination of Pistons turnovers and hot 3-point shooting to build its big first-half lead, saw the Pistons eat into it a couple of times, but kept finding something to pull away again. In the third quarter, it was Ja Morant playing like an MVP candidate that allowed Memphis to carry an 18-point lead to the fourth quarter. Morant’s third quarter: 21 points on 8 of 10 shooting with three assists after a relatively subdued first half that saw Morant score seven points on eight shots. Memphis took an 18-point lead to the fourth quarter and the Pistons didn’t have enough of a finishing kick in them to seriously challenge the lead, though they did get it to single digits with 1:45 left.
BACK IN THE MIX – With Isaiah Livers out with a sprained shoulder suffered in Thursday’s overtime win over Dallas, expected to sideline him for some time, rookie Jaden Ivey went back in the starting lineup. Ivey, who missed three games with a sprained ankle, came off the bench when he returned for the Dallas game. Ivey spent time in Memphis when his mother, current Notre Dame coach Nielle Ivey, was a Grizzlies assistant and parallels between Ivey and Ja Morant are drawn because of their common elite speed. Ivey showed it off in flashes, getting inside enough to get to the foul line and hit 5 of 6 free throws. He didn’t have much success from the perimeter though, despite hitting an early 3-pointer, and finished with 10 points, six rebounds and three assists in 28 minutes, hitting 2 of 9 shots. Killian Hayes, coming off his best game in the NBA and becoming a much more efficient scorer over the past month, hit 3 of 5 from the 3-point arc but just 2 of 8 inside of it, finishing with 13 points and six assists.
The Pistons remain without Cade Cunningham, who has been sidelined nearly a month by left shin soreness.
BENCH JUGGLING – With injuries forcing Dwane Casey to juggle his starting lineup and the ripple effect that’s had on the bench, it’s been a challenge to develop any sort of continuity for the second unit. But that unit had another productive night against Memphis, keying the second-quarter surge that saw the Pistons cut a 19-point deficit late in the first quarter to four with eight minutes left in the first half. Saddiq Bey (24 points) had his first 20-point game since Nov. 7 despite hitting just 1 of 6 from the 3-point line. Bey did most of his damage inside and at the foul line, where he made 9 of 12 shots. Veteran Alec Burks, whose return last month after he missed the first 12 games while recovering from April ankle surgery, went scoreless in a first half, missing all four of his shots, despite the bench contributing 26 of Detroit’s 57 first-half points. Burks finished with seven points in 18 minutes and the bench totaled 55 points. Hamidou Diallo, who didn’t play against Dallas on Thursday nor in Sunday’s first half, had 10 points in 12 minutes.