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Monday night's matchup between the Detroit Pistons and the Sacramento Kings was a tale of two halves. The Pistons led by as many as 18 points in the first half courtesy of their strong offensive execution, but the tide turned for both teams as the stars of the Kings led a comeback effort to defeat the Pistons 127-117.
Sacramento asserted their will by outscoring Detroit 65-to-45 in the second half. Guard Zach LaVine looked unstoppable for stretches by putting up 43 points. The Pistons struggled to contain him as he went 16-28 from the field and 8-11 from 3-point range. LaVine kept the Pistons' comeback hopes in check by scoring 17 clutch points in the fourth quarter.
The rest of Sacramento's pressure came from co-stars DeMar DeRozan and Domantas Sabonis. DeRozan had his way of scoring against the Pistons going for 37 points. Sabonis was impactful all over the stat sheet with 19 points, 15 rebounds, and 10 assists. The Pistons' head coach commented on what led to his team allowing such big performances during the postgame media session.
“Our execution of our game plan was poor. Understanding their personnel and their tendencies was poor. So that's on us to be better,” Bickerstaff explained. “Obviously, those guys are elite basketball players who are really, really good. But, if you allow them to play to their strengths, they become even better, and we didn't do a good enough job of taking away their strengths tonight.”
Pistons' All-Star guard Cade Cunningham carried a lot of Detroit's scoring with 35 points. He was efficient in his efforts, going 13-21, and was impactful at the free-throw line, going 8-11 from the stripe.
Tobias Harris remains out amid Jalen Duren's return
The Pistons were short-handed last game against the Grizzlies without their starting center Jalen Duren and veteran forward Tobias Harris. Detroit has been light in their frontcourt courtesy of the injuries and foul trouble, and that was the problem again against the Kings.
Duren returned to his starting role against Sacramento but was limited to under 20 minutes of playing time due to foul trouble. He was called for five fouls and never found a rhythm on either side of the ball because of it.
Harris was inactive against Sacramento, making that his third straight game out due to heel soreness. He tried returning last Wednesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder but reaggravated the injury in the second half of that game.
The Kings took advantage of the minimal depth of Detroit by dominating on the glass. The Pistons gave up 18 offensive rebounds and 25 second-chance points to Sacramento. That makes a total of 35 offensive rebounds surrendered by the Pistons to their opponents over the last two games. Cunningham spoke on the team's mindset and how they intend on finishing the regular season strong when asked by the media.
“We're in the same spot. We're confident. We're hungry. We are looking forward to getting better each and every game. The last two games being losses, obviously that's not the outcome we wanted, but it's still something we can take away from both of them,” Cunningham said. “We're going to watch the film on this, take as much as we can away from it, and be better for these last three games.”
Guard Tim Hardaway Jr. put up 19 points to aid the Pistons. Forward Ausar Thompson scored 15 points and swiped two steals in 29 minutes. Sixth man Malik Beasley tried to get his efficient shooting back with 14 points but only hit 4-14 triples against the Kings.
