Betrayer

Yep. That's what I've been saying as well. Get Duren in the starting lineup. I don't care if he's young and not that great at team defense yet. They need the rebounding, size, and verticality. You also don't want Duren and Bagley together off the bench because the spacing will be terrible. So it's a win-win. You can either start Stewart next to Duren and send Bey or Bojan to the bench unit, or simply send Stewart to the bench unit as you suggested, where he'll play alongside Marvin once he returns. Any way you slice it, it's better size and athleticism for the starting unit and better spacing for a bench unit that sorely needs it. And while we're at it, can we PLEASE get Casey to leave one of Ivey or Cade in the game at all times. This 5-man bench platoon garbage needs to end immediately. Nearly every other coach in the league staggers their two best players - it's not that hard.

Lebron's reaction to that shot was priceless.

Every game will be a bad matchup for him because he’s undersized at the center position. He really needs that shot to click so he can fill the Grant Williams role otherwise he’s going to be a liability in nearly every game. Love the effort but it doesn’t make you taller or able to jump higher. It’s time to put Stew next to another big man (Duren) and just see how it goes for a 10 game stretch. Slide Bey to the bench. We need the defense, rebounding, and vertical threat with the starters. Bench unit would (when healthy) be Hayes, Burks, Livers, Bey, Bagley. That’s a defensively challenged unit, but should have a good amount of shooters and scoring - and better if Casey can learn to stagger Cade and Ivey so one of them is in the game at all times.

My biggest take away from watching this mess of a game was once again that Casey needs to learn how to stagger his lineups like pretty much every other coach in the league. One of Ivey or Cade should be in the game at all times. It’s not that hard to do. Oh, and if there’s time after that, maybe learn to put a legitimate NBA offense on the court. Tired of watching these players have to go one on one with a low shot clock all time because the garbage offense doesn’t shift the defense at all. Young teams will be bad, but no need for Casey to continue to pour gasoline on the fire.

Could be this was a better draft than everyone thought.

After pre-season Casey talked about using different lineups depending upon the matchup. Let's see if he learned anything from the game against the Knicks. Starting Bojan and Stew against Randle and Mitchell is a train wreck. Duren needs to be in the starting lineup for this one to matchup with Mitchell. Then run Stew at PF to matchup with Randle. Push Bey or Bojan to the bench and let them come in alongside Noel at Center (he's not on the inured list and this is his former team, so he should get some minutes).

Love watching the Lakers lose.

Well, that was fun. Ivey and Duren looking special out there. Bojan was as advertised and now that Cade has some shooters to pass to he racked up the assists. Casey actually ran a few different defensive looks, not just switch everything. Enjoy this win. It’s a rough schedule for the first 20 games.

That was a clean block.

Why take Duren out there? He just made the last two stops.

Ivey’s having a game.

I think Stew’s three will be fine. It’s actually another reason I want him paired with another big because he can space the floor for the other guy. Two of Bagley, Duren, and Noel together is a bad idea. You need Bojan or Stew paired up with one of them. Try to turn him into Grant Williams is your best bet.

Duren just killed an Orlando player. Get a stretcher.

The defense and rebounding are just better with Duren in there. Love Stew, but he and Bojan need to be separated and paired with another big (Duren, Noel, or Bagley).

It’s too bad we don’t have two 5 picks where you could leave one in the game at all times.

I'm definitely a fan of a more dynamic offense that doesn't revolve around one guy doing everything. It's just too predictable come playoff time unless that player is a generational talent like Lebron. I see Cade as a more crafty player like Chris Paul. You want the ball in his hands to create for others but he's not the sole focus of your offense like Luka. I'd love to see more movement, cutting, and passing in this offense rather than 4 guys standing around watching one guy play hero ball. Maybe Ivey can do some of that (we'll see), but in general we don't have the personnel for hero ball. Last year we got crushed by teams that played tight coverage and aggressive perimeter defense. You beat that with movement, cutting, and screening off ball rather than trying to straight-line drive past defenders that are longer and more athletic. Beating a dead horse, but sadly we won't get that with Casey at the helm.

As we get better players around him, that trait will pay off. Maybe it starts this year with Ivey who will likely be a ball of aggression in every game. It could work out nicely with our Fire and Ice backcourt. High usage players are going to have a lot of turnovers - Luka averaged 4.5 last year to Cade's 3.7 - so I expect that to be something we're going to have to accept. I'm mostly concerned about the shooting. We actually got a ton of good looks in that Memphis game, but couldn't find the basket.

@boogiebunz Regardless of where the game has gone, the fact is that no other team soft switches 1-5 like we do. Did you watch opening night last night? 4 teams and none of them employ the scheme we employ. They all used a combination of switching, dropping, hedging, and scramming, and even some zone. Like I've said previously, you need to be able to switch, but even heavy switching teams don't do it all the time and they certainly don't soft switch all the time (switching before it's even necessary to do so). It's not just me saying this. There's a reason this scheme is catching so much heat in the media and on podcasts. There's a reason Casey was directly asked about this by the reporters during the preseason. And there's a reason JEIII had to write a fluff piece trying to give Casey's side of the story. It's not because this is what everyone else is doing and we're just catching up. It's because nobody else is soft switching 1-5 because nobody in their right mind would.

I think your last statement is the key to the misunderstanding we're having. What the Pistons are doing is not what other teams do. Soft switching 1-5 is doing it every time, on every play, for every position, even before it's necessary. The Pistons don't even wait for the screen to force the switch. It's almost like a zone switch. It's predictable, really bad for rebounding, gives up layups, and gives your opponent every mismatch they want, whenever they want it. Others teams switch when necessary, in certain matchups, against certain players (to limit the three ball), or only switch certain positions. Some teams rarely switch and prefer to run drop coverage or hedging. Certainly there are switch heavy teams such as Miami and Boston, but even they aren't doing what we're doing even though they might actually have the personnel to pull it off. I get that we don't have the defensive talent, but the coach doesn't have to pour gasoline on the fire either.

And when you were 24th in defensive rating, 26th in defensive rebound percentage, and 23rd in opponent points in the paint the offense is going score a lot more than "now and then", and do it a lot more efficiently because a layup is still the easiest shot in basketball. Other coaches might consider a different coverage scheme that does a better job of protecting against those shots, or the easily created mismatches that cause them.

On a more positive note, here's a nice breakdown from Bryce at Motor City Hoops of Jaden Ivey's passing and creation skills as show during preseason:

Don't judge a book by its cover and don't judge my post by the first sentence. I know I'm guilty of writing long posts, but I expanded upon my complaints after that 😄 GS won 4 titles with MVP(s), All-Stars, and a genius offensive coach. If we had 1/3rd of the offensive movement, screening, and cutting that GS has I'd be elated. Their defense was very good as well, but it's a lot easier to play defense when you get to set up in the half court every time. And, like you said, they don't soft switch everything. Being able to switch is great for this era - doing it exclusively is simply bad basketball that screws over your players. Especially when you don't have the personnel for it like Boston (long, athletic wings and the DPoY that can switch up and down). This stuff was said about him in Toronto because it's true. He's just not a good on-court coach. He didn't win Coach of the Year until Nurse came along and fixed his offense. The Raptors saw it and finally let him go. He's great for turning kids into men and keeping a happy locker room - 100% credit to him for that. But the word is that he'll be moving into a development role to do that for the team after he's done coaching anyway, so you won't lose that aspect of what he brings. That being the case, why not make that transition sooner? With something this obvious, I get impatient and just want to rip the band-aid off. If they wait any longer than this offseason to make a move, they're just wasting time (and player development years, in my opinion). At the very least, I'd love to see them bring in an assistant coach like Nurse to save us from watching this offense in its current state. "But if they fired him today I wouldn't be upset. Especially if it was to bring in someone like Atkins." Yup.

Interesting stuff, but I'll take the over. I have trouble trusting a ranking system that has the Utah Jazz that high (higher than the Bulls) with a 40% chance to make the playoffs. Pacers over the Kings and Wizards? I believe Rick Carlisle typically gets more out of his teams than you'd think he should, but I'm not buying them outside of the bottom 5.

Not at all what I'm saying, and I'm pretty sure you know it. Look around the league. Even teams that switch heavily aren't running a Soft Switching scheme 100% of the time. 5 minutes in and everyone - including the opposing broadcast team - knows how to get the mismatch they want on every play for the rest of the game. Pretty sure the rest of the league isn't living in 1987, but they certainly aren't running the same simplistic scheme as Casey, so clearly there are other options. I'm also pretty sure from the discussions we've had over the years that your BBall IQ is high enough to see this and also see how bad this offensive scheme is as well. Knowing that, it would impossible to think that it doesn't affect player development in a negative way. Keep him on board for the off-court stuff that he's good at, but we need a better coach on the court both to make these games more competitive and also for the sake of continued player development.