Charlotte at Detroit

[Real Deal]

TIME: 7:30 PM ET

TV: NBALP

[Built Ford Tough]

The amount of defensive attention the Bobcats gave Drummond every time he set a screen was ridiculous. I'm not even exagerating when I say that every time he would come to set a screen, you would see his man come up tight with him, the guard's (usually Bynum) man go with Drummond and then an additional perimeter defender (usually MKG or Taylor/Gordon/Henderson depending on who was on the floor and which side the screen was set on) would be completely shading over as well. This attention that Drummond was getting opened up a lot of room for the Pistons in the 1st half and is, in my opinion, the biggest reason why they were shooting a blistering 70% from field before he came out with 3 or so minutes left in the half.

 

Another thing that really surprised me was how much Charlotte switches on their screens. Detroit was really taking advantage of this early in the game by having Prince set a screen on Walker to create the switch and then immediately posting him up and just shooting over the top of Kemba. Prince was 5/5 in the 1st and I think 3 of those baskets came off of that exact play.

 

I've got to hand it to Dunlap, though. He made some nice defensive adjustments at half time and entering the 4th and it really paid off for the Bobcats. They stopped switching those screens, stayed at home on the shooters more (even if that did result in 3 Drummond lobs, it took away the open perimeter looks that were killing them in the 1st half) and did a nice job of pressuring the Piston perimeter players which resulted in a lot of poor passes and turnovers (22 total Piston turnovers with Charlotte scoring 26 points off said turnovers). They really took Detroit out of the nice rhythym they had offensively in the 1st half.

 

That and the offensive rebounding (Bobcats had 19 offensive boards and around 27 2nd chance points) ended up enabling the Bobcats to, in my opinion, steal a game on the road with the overtime win, although for what it is worth, they were definitely the much better team in the overtime period.