Almost a month into the season, the only team better than the Pistons are the reigning NBA champs. Fueled by the MVP-caliber play of Cade Cunningham and fierce defense, the Pistons are 10-2 and winners of eight straight entering Friday night's game against the 76ers at Little Caesars Arena.
"It starts with our defense," head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said Friday morning on 97.1 The Ticket. "That’s when we’re at our best. When we’re defending at a high level and paying attention to all the details, limiting our mistakes, being physical -- doing the things that other people just don’t want to do, all the gritty things, all the nasty things -- we’re going to give ourselves a chance because that creates offensive opportunities for us to get out and run and be fast where our guys thrive in the transition game. The more stops we get, the more we excel on the offensive end."
The Pistons are playing a different game than most of the top teams in the NBA. While the league has prioritized three-point shooting and spacing on offense, the Pistons are winning with bully ball on both ends of the floor.
They're third in the NBA in defensive rating, second in blocks and steals, fourth in opponent field goal percentage. On the other end, they're 28th in three-point attempts, but third in free throw attempts. They're second overall in rebounding.
Cunningham has taken another step toward superstardom, while 21-year-old Jalen Duren is emerging as one of the best centers in the NBA. 22-year Ausar Thompson has taken has game to a new level on the offensive end to offset the absence of Jaden Ivey; the same goes for 20-year-old Ron Holland II.
The Pistons have weathered the offseason losses of Malik Beasley, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Dennis Schroder by filling in the gaps with the likes of Caris LeVert and sharp-shooter Duncan Robinson. And Detroit's bench has been reliable when called upon. The Pistons beat the Bulls with ease Wednesday night while missing four of their five starters to injuries in Cunningham, Duren, Thompson and Tobias Harris.
No, they aren't raining and draining threes like the Cavaliers and the Knicks, two fellow contenders in the East. They aren't lighting up the scoreboard like the Thunder, Nuggets and Rockets, three contenders in the West. But they've won more games than all those teams save the defending champs from OKC.
Bickerstaff pushed back on the notion that the Pistons need to create more space on offense to generate more threes and said, "I don’t think spacing is the issue because we’ve kind of learned to play in small spaces and where we want our guys on the floor."
"You always look to generate as many open threes as you can, but we’re built different than most teams in the NBA," he said. "What we try to do is play to our strengths, and our strength is dominating the painted area and being physical, driving the basketball and creating paint opportunities because those lead to lay-ups, they lead to free throws, they lead to getting in the bonus early in the quarter and then they lead to those open threes.
"We’re not going to play a game that everybody else might play just because that’s the way that everybody’s doing it. We try to play the game based on our personnel, and we have physical, attacking, punishing people on our team. We just want to dominate the painted area and see teams make adjustments, and that will help us generate those threes."
The Pistons' winning streak is tied for their longest since they won 10 straight in January and February of 2008 on their way to their sixth straight trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. They're 10-2 for the first time since the 2005-06 season when they won a franchise-best -- and NBA-best -- 64 games. While Bickerstaff and his players "aren't focused on a final outcome or a last number (of wins)," consumed instead with the day at hand, his message to the fans is this: "Just enjoy the ride."
"It’s a great group of guys who play a beautiful brand of basketball that I think if you watch it, you’ll fall in love with the collective group and the individuals that are a part of it," Bickerstaff said. "And it comes with ups and downs. That’s the reality of sports. It comes with adversity. It comes with things that you can’t control. But when you watch the Detroit Pistons play basketball -- if you love the game, if you love competition, if you love sport -- we’re the team for you.
"Support us, have our back, because our guys play for our fans. They play for the city of Detroit, the state of Michigan. That’s what’s important to our guys, and they play with an identity that I think the city and the fanbase can relate to because it's gritty, it's tough, it's blue-collar. It's ferocious. When I (think of) Detroit or Michigan, that’s what I feel like the identity is, and our guys carry that identity every night on the court."