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Tough game, one they should’ve won and its extra frustrating considering that the Nuggets were already short-handed before getting Jokic and Mike Malone ejected from the game.

Box score.

Cade Cunningham:

We saw a better version of Cade tonight and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it happened on a night where he spent more time on the floor with another legit offensive player in Ivey. 27 points on 7-17 shooting (11-11 from the line!) with 9 assists, even at the expense of 5 turnovers, is a very nice stat line. He had a couple of tough misses in the game’s closing possessions from having a monster night where he won the Pistons the game, but he came up just short in the end.

There is already significant talk about how heliocentric the offense became down the stretch, with Cade having the ball nearly non-stop for the final 5ish minutes of the game. While it is true that this isn’t ideal, especially considering that Ivey had played pretty well on the night, but I would remind people that in the final few possessions the Pistons got decent looks. Cade missed a couple of shots by a bit (and may have been fouled) and the one where he dropped it off to Stew was the right play, its just unfortunate that the ground-bound Isaiah Stewart was on the receiving end which allowed Michael Porter Jr to make a huge block from behind on Stewart (and on replay that one was absolutely clean as far as I’m concerned). All of this is to say that, as much as the final product was disappointing, the process was mostly alright. And while it is true that in an ideal world Cade will let Ivey do some more stuff down the stretch, those types of growing pains are exactly the reason why its so important for them to be on the floor in important moments. There will continue to be growing pains as they both pull and push to find their right lanes, but as long as they are allowed to do that I’m okay with the results being poor at times this season.

Jaden Ivey:

Obviously touched on him a bit already but a very solid night for Ivey. In 30 minutes (even when he starts we can’t let him play too much after all) he had 17 points on 7-8 shooting with 4 boards and 3 assists. The downside was 4 turnovers but I’m trying to push a narrative here.

Even narrative aside its hard to come away from this game not feeling really good about Ivey. He picked his spots, was aggressive in transition, and the turnovers were of the classic “Driving to the hoop before realizing he bit off more than he can chew” types that are inevitable with young players as opposed to plays that are objectively stupid/lazy/bad reads. Also worth pointing out that I think he was genuinely good on the defensive end for much of the night. At the end of the day it is clear that Ivey is simply too talented and too good to not be playing 30+ minutes per game for this team.

You seem a little bit too cheery about all this

Before the season I said that the thing I wanted to see more than anything else from this season was Cade and Jaden playing together and growing together. We got that tonight for the first time. If that is happening I can stomach losses, especially when they are close losses where the shots just don’t fall down the stretch.

(ill also admit that I still love watching Reggie Jackson so it was hard for me to even get too upset about him torching the Pistons down the stretch)

Ausar Thompson:

Less involved tonight, also wasn’t as impactful defensively as he often has been. Very important to note that the defense is more of a comment on how good he has been, he still had some very good moments including a HUGE block early in the game. But he struggled a bit and found himself in foul trouble tonight.

Offensively, 4-10 from the field for 8 points. Had some really nice cuts but also caused some troubles down the stretch by not being guarded and occasionally cutting to the wrong place.

Isaiah Stewart:

11 points and 11 rebounds sounds fine but I just didn’t think it was good enough tonight. Perhaps the greatest indictment of Stew is the fact that after Jokic got ejected the Nuggets had Aaron Gordon as the nominal center for the majority of the night and at no point did it feel like the Pistons had an advantage inside despite ostensibly going “big” with Stewart and Bagley next to each other. Simply put, Stewart has the offensive profile of a big but he isn’t actually big or athletic enough to actually do the big-man stuff you need.

Marvin Bagley:

Just to get the negative out of the way, obviously part of the blame from Stew’s section falls on Bagley as well. The fact that the Nuggets never seemed to struggle with the Pistons size after the ejection of Jokic is not good.

Still, a positive game for Bagley because it isn’t absurd to suggest he played Jokic to a draw early in the game. I doubt it would’ve lasted (after Jokic’s first tech he came down the floor and scored on Marvin so easily it was comical and I suspect that if he had kept his mouth shut he would’ve done more of that in the second half) but Marvin got several tough buckets and even avoided being a complete disaster on the defensive end. He finished with 18 points on 7-13 shooting along with 8 boards in 26 minutes of play. His buckets were tough, he competed on both ends and was generally a positive tonight. This also marks the first time he’s been pressed into heavier minutes this season where my recap isn’t some for of how obviously overmatched he is as a starter.

Isaiah Livers:

Back from injury, Livers was effective defensively but on offense 6 points on 1-7 shooting (4-4 from the line) isn’t going to be good enough. That said, with the way he defends, if he can make good on his promise as a shooter he could be exactly what the team needs.

James Wiseman:

nah

Alec Burks:

Another game of regression. Just 3 points on 1-5 shooting from the field and 0-4 from deep in 17 minutes. The regression was always going to come after his hot start but hopefully, it doesn’t stay this significant because it is abundantly clear that his hot shooting was the only thing keeping this bench group afloat.

Killian Hayes:

Also back from injury, just 14 minutes and didn’t score. There is a big takeaway here though. Playing with the bench, and with Alec Burks no longer a walking fire tornado, its abundantly clear that he isn’t really a facilitator. He may not turn the ball over often, he may make the right pass to get assists with regularity, but he simply doesn’t command the attention of opposing defenses in a way that allows him to create easy looks for his teammates. Without a really good (or just very hot) shooter on the floor with him to do the heavy lifting it exposes him to this. And to be clear, I don’t want to be too hard on Killian and he’s having a very nice season, but it is stark how with Burks going cold the bench offense is simply dead on arrival.

Stanley Umude:

In 18 minutes he scored 11 points on 4-8 shooting which included a sweet up and under layup sandwiched between a pair of three-pointers. I know its a dangerous thing with these “barely in the league” guys but I really think Umude should get a real shot in the rotation over the next month or so. Whenever he’s played he’s done nothing but hustle defensively and hit shots on offense.

Marcus Sasser:

Just 5 minutes, it would appear that he may be on the rotational chopping block. It’s tough but also fairly reasonable. After a hot start his impact has wained recently., although I hope they can manage to carve out at least some minutes for him.

General:

A tough loss, and I totally understand all of the frustrations people have, but for now I’m going to simply be contented with Ivey and Cade finally getting some good run together.