DETROIT – Just a couple of weeks ago, the Pistons looked like they were ready to compete for a 6th seed in the Eastern Conference.
Now, the Detroit Pistons are on the outside looking in, sitting in the 10th seed, 2.5 games out of a playoff spot.
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At 34-38, and 10 games left, it looks like the Pistons will struggle to make the playoffs for a second straight year.
The team has dropped two straight games to teams with worse records, including to the NBA's worst team, the Brooklyn Nets.
After dropping a game to the Chicago Bulls Wednesday night, coach Stan Van Gundy was not happy:
"The message I gave them is, 'Look, we got 10 games left," he said. "And if we don't change the way we're playing, this is going to get really, really ugly.
"We didn't defend at any point in the second half. We didn't defend much in the first half, either. Just really disappointing. We were 33-33, got tied, back to .500 after that New York game [on March 11], ran into a buzz saw in Cleveland [three nights later], and that's it. We haven't bounced back. It's like we took that one hit and have not recovered at all. Have not played a decent game since then. This is six bad games in a row."
"Right now, we don't have a lot of life in us, and we got to find some by Friday," Van Gundy added. "It's just not one position, either. We're just not playing. We're not. We're just bad all the way around."
Andre Drummond believes there's still time to turn it around (via ESPN):
"I trust my guys," Drummond said. "We're a good group of guys here that are willing to put the work in and willing to fight for what we believe in. We believe that we're a really good team. We believe that we belong in the playoffs. It's going to take a lot of work now. We don't have any room for error right now. We're going to need to win quite a few games to put ourselves in a position to get back in the playoffs again; so we have what it takes to be there, so we're going to do it."
Here are the Pistons by the numbers:
26th in points per game (101.5)
19th in field goal percentage (45.1)
27th in three point shooting percentage (33)
29th in free throw shooting percentage (72.2)
29th in free throws attempted (19.6)
25th in assists per game (21.1)
23rd in points off turnovers (14.7)
11th in second change points per game (13.4)
2nd in least turnovers per game (11.8)