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In his first game without Delon Wright for the next two weeks, the Detroit Pistons missed his stable presence.
Dennis Smith, Jr. started in his place and struggled mightily outside of some sunk perimeter shots in a 30-second flurry. His signature athleticism continues to be more theoretical than functional, which isn’t terribly surprising given some injuries. He can work his way into the form of the game and show off what made him a lottery pick, but he was noticeably absent tonight.
Enter Know Lee.
Lee’s quickness gave the magical defense some crises and created a myriad of great opportunities for his teammates. He finished the game with 12 points, four rebounds, five assists and three steals while finishing with a team best score +3 plus-minus. In this case, the score in the box very accurately represents the huge impact of the two-way player on the game.
Oh, and he tried to end a career at the Rim again:
Unfortunately, Lee’s exceptional effort was not enough for the Pistons to fully recover from a few deficits in the first half.
Orlando built their lead on the hot shot from Evan Fournier (who finished with 29 points on 15 shots) and noted Pistons killer Terrence Ross, but they won the game thanks to All Star prospect Nikola. Vucevic.
Vucevic scored 37 points, grabbed 11 points and did it without much resistance. It’s not necessarily a blow to Detroit’s defense against him – he just had one of those nights where you really can’t do anything against him.
Detroit couldn’t match Vucevic’s performance.
Jerami Grant scored 24 points on good efficiency and was his usual solid. Josh Jackson added 17, but he did so with 23 shots. Being pushed into a larger creative role, Jackson rushed too much and got stuck in a lot of traffic with no exit plan. A bigger attacking role will have to come for Jackson during Wright’s absence, but the first results of the game weren’t there.
The loss to the Magic was a huge reminder of how difficult it was for the Pistons when the shots weren’t falling and they didn’t have a primary creator. Dwane Casey and his company will have to fabricate more offense for its younger members. Detroit will see Orlando again on Tuesday, which will be a good test of whether the correct adjustments can be made.
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