Can Any Conference Finals Team Beat the Pistons?
Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2024 3:41 pm
Can Any Conference Finals Team Beat the Pistons?
A Garbageman Production
It's been an historic season for the Detroit Pistons. They now have the best regular season record of all time with 79-3, which handily outdid the 75-7 that false9's Magic set (and the ballsohard Pistons later tied). Both the Magic and Pistons went on to win the championship in their respective 75-9 seasons. For balls' Pistons, that was the 3rd of 4 championships in a row. For false9's Magic, that was their second of two in a row, and it probably would've been the meat in a three-peat sandwich if it wasn't for an injury that kept Hall of Famer Boban Marjanovic out for the entire Finals. Even without Boban, the Magic took that series to 7 games and only lost by a buzzer beating three pointer.
By those standards, Quailman's Pistons could easily try to outdo Ballsohard's 4-peat and go for 5. The team is young enough and talented enough to do it. The only thing that could stop Doug from a 5-peat is the tax. That's the only thing that stopped ballsohard. Gerry Folse, who had just won his 4th Finals MVP in a row out of a whopping 6, was expiring. Ballsohard couldn't re-sign him, so he retired. In hindsight, it's a bit specious that the new ownership was able to swoop in and take advantage of those bird rights when the organization had driven the team into financial mayhem, but them's the breaks.
In contrast, Kel'el Ware...probably the least crucial piece of the current Pistons' puzzle (albeit an incredibly crucial least crucial piece) is the only Piston that's not under contract next season. And thanks to a 45 game win streak, a 79 win season, and an all but guaranteed 16 points from the playoffs, Doug will be seeing plenty of points this season. He'll still be a bit short of the 204 he'll owe (and if he was doing all the town halls, writing media, and doing the little things like perfect DC attendance for the past few seasons, he probably could've hustled and covered). Still, with 79 wins and 4 out of 5 starting positions locked in by purple potential monster players, throwing out 10 vet mins to serviceable centers and other depth players would certainly net Doug a strong enough team to keep going with a lower bill. It can almost be liberating to not have the cap space to waste bids on long shots and trying to sneak in players before your resigns (although RFA was proof positive it could have be done).
If Doug wants to stick around, in all likelihood, he's going to sell high, get under the apron, and get a haul for Lauri, Peewee, and Carrasco. I'll admit, a part of me wants to see if he can get 5, but there's another part that is going to be glad when the monolith is destroyed. I've seen a lot of outspoken noobs who don't understand why some GMs--especially those who have to run the league--are sour on such a superteam. Of course, nothing is ever 100% guaranteed, but I'd happily take just about any bet that if you lock in the Piston's current DC and gameplan, Doug's hitting a three-peat (even if all three teams still left read this article and listen to my advice). This season, it's been fine for me. I haven't had to do much work-wise, and I could just sit back and collect future players and assets and be bad. Nate can't do that. Nate's putting in 8 weeks of work whether it's a competitive season or not...doing hours and hours of shit that nobody else has to do to keep this place running.
But for the three teams that are left, is there anything they can do to alter the course of fate? Let's take a look.
Washington Wizards
The Wizards have the first shot at taking down the Detoit Pistons, and you could argue that they have the best shot at taking down the Pistons. They're far and away the deepest team left in the Conference Finals with any blue players on the bench, and they've got triples of the second unit blues.
The Wizards also have the size to match the Pistons. With Fabian Hub and Antonio Gates, the Wizards have a lot of options in terms of lineup flexibility. I'd try that out. They could feasibly roll out a lineup of Amen Thompson/Fabian Hub/Antonio Gates/Mark Shinn/Jonathan Kuminga and try to outsize the Pistons. Hub's size and low PFL might give them the edge they need against an MVP player like Peewee Kirkland. While Kirkland still has an athletic edge, Hub is still quick at 79 and has solid defense both inside and out to go with his length. Furthermore, an inside focus with Gates on Hoyt might negate Timmerman's defensive prowess. Gates might be a bit slower than Hoyt, but he has elite defensive attributes and is even better than Fabian on the perimeter
The Wizards also have lineups they can roll out that are focused on three point shooting with 4 players in the A range and 1 in the B range. This gives plenty of options for bench scoring. This flexibility is key because Xist has a well earned reputation as an incredible game planner who has been tinkering with lineups meticulously for years and years. He's always able to get the most bang from his buck out of his teams.
Now, the Pistons don't have a ton of weaknesses, but if the Wiz can take advantage of the depth by keeping the pace high and balancing minutes between their starters and their second unit, they could have the edge when starters are resting, and the right combo of starters could keep the games in hand. While size is important, their three point shooters can take advantage of a Pistons team that was middle of the pack in opponent's three point percentage. The Wiz have a team that's put together to be able to game plan either way, and against Detroit, I think that means going balanced with moderately frequent three point shooting and getting everyone involved. Detroit shut Washington down in 4 games this series, but the Wizards were able to beat them by 8 in preseason, so we know that the range of outcomes the game allows does include the Wizards beating the Pistons. I'll be cheering for that to happen, and if it does happen, I'll really be rooting for Washington and xist in the Finals.
San Antonio Spurs
I can't remember if there ever was a time a team with a losing record has made it to the Conference Finals. I certainly don't remember one. At 39-43, though, that's exactly what the Spurs did in an absolute dogshit conference. But let's get something straight. The Spurs are not as bad as their record implies. They were without Percy Miller for a couple months at the beginning of the season. 24 more games of Master P, and San Antonio would probably be over .500 (though not by too much).
The Omega Conference is one of the weakest conferences I've seen in the game, so it's not really a shock to me that having a strong starting PG was enough to get them in the playoffs. I didn't see it being enough to oust the number one seeded Raptors, who were chock full of talent, but with a lot of redundancies and some gaps. It's still ludicrous that the #5 team in the conference was under .500. In a season where we added two playoff spots, only 9 out of the 16 playoff teams had a record of .500 or better. The Spurs were the only sub-.500 team that made it out of round 1. Now that they've run into a team with wings to match their wings and another solid PG, they're going to have some trouble with the Mavs big men. But this article isn't about how to beat the Mavs...it's about how to beat the Pistons.
So let's say that the Pistons take down the Wizards and through sheer determination of not submitting DCs for the playoffs (bring back auto-pilot), the Spurs make it past a stronger Mavericks team. How do they take down the Pistons? Well, I could talk about how only having a big 3 and not a stacked roster makes it easy to focus on your strenghts. For the Spurs, that's offense. Give your big three the key player slots and turn three point shot up. As stated earlier, the Pistons' 3 point defense isn't as elite as the rest of their stats, and the Alvarado, SVG, and Percy Miller can all hit the three. The Spurs are just behind the Wizards as a three point shooting team.
Unfortunately, though, there's not much else the Spurs can do. They've got to stick with what brought them, and the only real way the Spurs can not get swept by the Pistons is to either hope for the Pistons starting 5 to get in a bus crash or hope that the developer of Fast Break Basketball 3 coded in some secret double agent mode where if you trade an MVP player to the most powerful team in the league, he actually sabotages them if that powerful team faces you in the playoffs.
But at least the Spurs will extend the playoffs with DC sandbagging, which thankfully will let me get this article up before the Conference Finals are over (and hopefully before the first games have been played!) Because the Spurs did make the Pistons an unstoppable force, I can't really in good conscience have a preference between who wins in a Pistons/Spurs matchup. If I'm sitting at home, I'm probably not watching this one because it's going to be a blowout with no horse in the race, although wouldn't it be something if a 39-43 team won the championship?
Dallas Mavericks
Last, we have the Mavs...a team I hope wins the championship some day, but not this season and not until they start trading with the rest of the league instead of just the Hawks, who have been involved in 5 of their last 10 trades. That being said, the Mavs look like a Pistons Lite. They have a strong starting five and a weak bench. But their starting five is not as strong as the Pistons starting 5, and their weak bench is not as strong as the Pistons weak bench. They've modeled themselves after trying to become the Pistons, but they're not quite there yet. Their best bench player, A'ja Wilson, is nowhere near her ceiling, and while the gamechanging move that netted them both Dino Sanchez and Trent Dawes for next to (or maybe even less than) nothing (they gave up an expiring blue player on an 80mm contract whose poor efficiency and 0.1 estimated win share should definitively disprove everything LTS has said about Candice Parker over the past few seasons.
THe most intriguing weapon that the Mavs have is Angel Reese. At 22 years old, standing 6'9, and having As across all 4 scoring categories, Reese will be a nightmare to defend for most players. Kirkland and Hoyt Timmerman might be the best equipped to handle her because they play defense, but she'll be able to probably wash out the effects of one of them. Dominitrix Johnson is also an intriguing player because at 6'9 with abilities to score inside and out, DJ can also nullify someone. Unfortunately, the lack of depth is going to present a challenge to the Mavs. If they're punching up against the Pistons, DJ and Reese are their two main weapons. Johnson is pretty much locked into the 3-spot because any bench player would get eaten up by the Pistons, even if DJ is an interesting matchup against Lauri Markkanen.
Still, Markkanen is such a nightmare, I might have to put DJ on her. You can switch Dawes or Sanchez on Markkanen, but both of them would have a hard time due to lack of speed and each only being elite at post defense or blocks, but not both. I think since DJ can play post defense and has the athleticism to match, that's at least worth a try. Hoyt is their least efficient offensive player and is a strong defender, so maybe not having a starter-quality player on him to start the game isn't the worst thing. I've got Johnson starting at PF, Reese starting at SG, whoever starting at SF, and Dawes coming off the bench to slide DJ to SF with the second unit to stagger the looks of the first and second teams.
I think the toughest problem is that Dennis Funkhouser...while a great player...is 7 inches shorter than Bernardo Carrasco. Carrasco is the third most efficient player on the Pistons (and would be the most efficient player on the Mavs), and he has a tremendous height advantage. Funkhouser's athleticism is also pretty weak, so it's not like he'll be able to make up for that with quickness or jumping ability. He had a tremendous season as a facilitator though, so he will still be able to provide plenty of value there, but Carrasco is going to be a difficult matchup over a 7 game series. Funkhouser has proven himself...in the Pistons' final loss of the season, the Mavs were the victors in Dallas, and Funkhouser took home player of the game honors with a whopping 15 dimes on top of a perfect 5/5 performance from beyond the arc. As has been the theme, three point defense isn't the strongest Pistons attribute, and a lot of that could be Carrasco's weak link defense. His perimeter defense is only C-level, and while Peewee and Hoyt have great defensive skills, the Mavs can shoot over them with their height. Turn those threes up to 10. Not every night is going to be a .667 3-pt shooting night (which was the case against the Pistons in the Mavs victory over them), but you'll need 4 games with at least .400 clip to beat the Pistons.
Especially if the Mavs take a 2-0 lead on the Spurs, I'd use games 3-4 to pull back from the heavy workloads the starters have relied on to see which bench players are going to perform in the playoffs. The Mavs will at least need a solid 6th man to slot into the starting lineup if needed or have someone that can keep the Mavs in the game when the starters need rest. I imagine a Mavs/Pistons finals is going to have the Mavs playing all their starters 48 minutes. For this reason, the Mavs should hope their series ends quicker than Wiz/Pistons and that the Alpha teams take some chunks out of each other. Their biggest advantage is facing a sub-.500 team. I don't want to count the Spurs out, but this should give the Mavs some leeway to maybe not have to push their starters as hard as they did against the hobbled Warriors.
So who's go the best shot?
Of the three teams, I'd have to go with the Wizards. They're the only team with depth. The Mavericks are a good team with a great starting lineup, but they're facing an actualized, better version of their own team, and it's really hard to match up with that. The Spurs aren't a deep team, and they're not even expecting to be here, so they're playing with house money at this point, but the deck is stacked heavily against them. The Wizards are the only team that looks different than Detroit on paper and has the most counteractive strengths where Detroit is weak.
But at the end of the day, they're all longshots. The more interesting and divisive question might be: can the Pistons sweep the playoffs?
A Garbageman Production
It's been an historic season for the Detroit Pistons. They now have the best regular season record of all time with 79-3, which handily outdid the 75-7 that false9's Magic set (and the ballsohard Pistons later tied). Both the Magic and Pistons went on to win the championship in their respective 75-9 seasons. For balls' Pistons, that was the 3rd of 4 championships in a row. For false9's Magic, that was their second of two in a row, and it probably would've been the meat in a three-peat sandwich if it wasn't for an injury that kept Hall of Famer Boban Marjanovic out for the entire Finals. Even without Boban, the Magic took that series to 7 games and only lost by a buzzer beating three pointer.
By those standards, Quailman's Pistons could easily try to outdo Ballsohard's 4-peat and go for 5. The team is young enough and talented enough to do it. The only thing that could stop Doug from a 5-peat is the tax. That's the only thing that stopped ballsohard. Gerry Folse, who had just won his 4th Finals MVP in a row out of a whopping 6, was expiring. Ballsohard couldn't re-sign him, so he retired. In hindsight, it's a bit specious that the new ownership was able to swoop in and take advantage of those bird rights when the organization had driven the team into financial mayhem, but them's the breaks.
In contrast, Kel'el Ware...probably the least crucial piece of the current Pistons' puzzle (albeit an incredibly crucial least crucial piece) is the only Piston that's not under contract next season. And thanks to a 45 game win streak, a 79 win season, and an all but guaranteed 16 points from the playoffs, Doug will be seeing plenty of points this season. He'll still be a bit short of the 204 he'll owe (and if he was doing all the town halls, writing media, and doing the little things like perfect DC attendance for the past few seasons, he probably could've hustled and covered). Still, with 79 wins and 4 out of 5 starting positions locked in by purple potential monster players, throwing out 10 vet mins to serviceable centers and other depth players would certainly net Doug a strong enough team to keep going with a lower bill. It can almost be liberating to not have the cap space to waste bids on long shots and trying to sneak in players before your resigns (although RFA was proof positive it could have be done).
If Doug wants to stick around, in all likelihood, he's going to sell high, get under the apron, and get a haul for Lauri, Peewee, and Carrasco. I'll admit, a part of me wants to see if he can get 5, but there's another part that is going to be glad when the monolith is destroyed. I've seen a lot of outspoken noobs who don't understand why some GMs--especially those who have to run the league--are sour on such a superteam. Of course, nothing is ever 100% guaranteed, but I'd happily take just about any bet that if you lock in the Piston's current DC and gameplan, Doug's hitting a three-peat (even if all three teams still left read this article and listen to my advice). This season, it's been fine for me. I haven't had to do much work-wise, and I could just sit back and collect future players and assets and be bad. Nate can't do that. Nate's putting in 8 weeks of work whether it's a competitive season or not...doing hours and hours of shit that nobody else has to do to keep this place running.
But for the three teams that are left, is there anything they can do to alter the course of fate? Let's take a look.
Washington Wizards
The Wizards have the first shot at taking down the Detoit Pistons, and you could argue that they have the best shot at taking down the Pistons. They're far and away the deepest team left in the Conference Finals with any blue players on the bench, and they've got triples of the second unit blues.
The Wizards also have the size to match the Pistons. With Fabian Hub and Antonio Gates, the Wizards have a lot of options in terms of lineup flexibility. I'd try that out. They could feasibly roll out a lineup of Amen Thompson/Fabian Hub/Antonio Gates/Mark Shinn/Jonathan Kuminga and try to outsize the Pistons. Hub's size and low PFL might give them the edge they need against an MVP player like Peewee Kirkland. While Kirkland still has an athletic edge, Hub is still quick at 79 and has solid defense both inside and out to go with his length. Furthermore, an inside focus with Gates on Hoyt might negate Timmerman's defensive prowess. Gates might be a bit slower than Hoyt, but he has elite defensive attributes and is even better than Fabian on the perimeter
The Wizards also have lineups they can roll out that are focused on three point shooting with 4 players in the A range and 1 in the B range. This gives plenty of options for bench scoring. This flexibility is key because Xist has a well earned reputation as an incredible game planner who has been tinkering with lineups meticulously for years and years. He's always able to get the most bang from his buck out of his teams.
Now, the Pistons don't have a ton of weaknesses, but if the Wiz can take advantage of the depth by keeping the pace high and balancing minutes between their starters and their second unit, they could have the edge when starters are resting, and the right combo of starters could keep the games in hand. While size is important, their three point shooters can take advantage of a Pistons team that was middle of the pack in opponent's three point percentage. The Wiz have a team that's put together to be able to game plan either way, and against Detroit, I think that means going balanced with moderately frequent three point shooting and getting everyone involved. Detroit shut Washington down in 4 games this series, but the Wizards were able to beat them by 8 in preseason, so we know that the range of outcomes the game allows does include the Wizards beating the Pistons. I'll be cheering for that to happen, and if it does happen, I'll really be rooting for Washington and xist in the Finals.
San Antonio Spurs
I can't remember if there ever was a time a team with a losing record has made it to the Conference Finals. I certainly don't remember one. At 39-43, though, that's exactly what the Spurs did in an absolute dogshit conference. But let's get something straight. The Spurs are not as bad as their record implies. They were without Percy Miller for a couple months at the beginning of the season. 24 more games of Master P, and San Antonio would probably be over .500 (though not by too much).
The Omega Conference is one of the weakest conferences I've seen in the game, so it's not really a shock to me that having a strong starting PG was enough to get them in the playoffs. I didn't see it being enough to oust the number one seeded Raptors, who were chock full of talent, but with a lot of redundancies and some gaps. It's still ludicrous that the #5 team in the conference was under .500. In a season where we added two playoff spots, only 9 out of the 16 playoff teams had a record of .500 or better. The Spurs were the only sub-.500 team that made it out of round 1. Now that they've run into a team with wings to match their wings and another solid PG, they're going to have some trouble with the Mavs big men. But this article isn't about how to beat the Mavs...it's about how to beat the Pistons.
So let's say that the Pistons take down the Wizards and through sheer determination of not submitting DCs for the playoffs (bring back auto-pilot), the Spurs make it past a stronger Mavericks team. How do they take down the Pistons? Well, I could talk about how only having a big 3 and not a stacked roster makes it easy to focus on your strenghts. For the Spurs, that's offense. Give your big three the key player slots and turn three point shot up. As stated earlier, the Pistons' 3 point defense isn't as elite as the rest of their stats, and the Alvarado, SVG, and Percy Miller can all hit the three. The Spurs are just behind the Wizards as a three point shooting team.
Unfortunately, though, there's not much else the Spurs can do. They've got to stick with what brought them, and the only real way the Spurs can not get swept by the Pistons is to either hope for the Pistons starting 5 to get in a bus crash or hope that the developer of Fast Break Basketball 3 coded in some secret double agent mode where if you trade an MVP player to the most powerful team in the league, he actually sabotages them if that powerful team faces you in the playoffs.
But at least the Spurs will extend the playoffs with DC sandbagging, which thankfully will let me get this article up before the Conference Finals are over (and hopefully before the first games have been played!) Because the Spurs did make the Pistons an unstoppable force, I can't really in good conscience have a preference between who wins in a Pistons/Spurs matchup. If I'm sitting at home, I'm probably not watching this one because it's going to be a blowout with no horse in the race, although wouldn't it be something if a 39-43 team won the championship?
Dallas Mavericks
Last, we have the Mavs...a team I hope wins the championship some day, but not this season and not until they start trading with the rest of the league instead of just the Hawks, who have been involved in 5 of their last 10 trades. That being said, the Mavs look like a Pistons Lite. They have a strong starting five and a weak bench. But their starting five is not as strong as the Pistons starting 5, and their weak bench is not as strong as the Pistons weak bench. They've modeled themselves after trying to become the Pistons, but they're not quite there yet. Their best bench player, A'ja Wilson, is nowhere near her ceiling, and while the gamechanging move that netted them both Dino Sanchez and Trent Dawes for next to (or maybe even less than) nothing (they gave up an expiring blue player on an 80mm contract whose poor efficiency and 0.1 estimated win share should definitively disprove everything LTS has said about Candice Parker over the past few seasons.
THe most intriguing weapon that the Mavs have is Angel Reese. At 22 years old, standing 6'9, and having As across all 4 scoring categories, Reese will be a nightmare to defend for most players. Kirkland and Hoyt Timmerman might be the best equipped to handle her because they play defense, but she'll be able to probably wash out the effects of one of them. Dominitrix Johnson is also an intriguing player because at 6'9 with abilities to score inside and out, DJ can also nullify someone. Unfortunately, the lack of depth is going to present a challenge to the Mavs. If they're punching up against the Pistons, DJ and Reese are their two main weapons. Johnson is pretty much locked into the 3-spot because any bench player would get eaten up by the Pistons, even if DJ is an interesting matchup against Lauri Markkanen.
Still, Markkanen is such a nightmare, I might have to put DJ on her. You can switch Dawes or Sanchez on Markkanen, but both of them would have a hard time due to lack of speed and each only being elite at post defense or blocks, but not both. I think since DJ can play post defense and has the athleticism to match, that's at least worth a try. Hoyt is their least efficient offensive player and is a strong defender, so maybe not having a starter-quality player on him to start the game isn't the worst thing. I've got Johnson starting at PF, Reese starting at SG, whoever starting at SF, and Dawes coming off the bench to slide DJ to SF with the second unit to stagger the looks of the first and second teams.
I think the toughest problem is that Dennis Funkhouser...while a great player...is 7 inches shorter than Bernardo Carrasco. Carrasco is the third most efficient player on the Pistons (and would be the most efficient player on the Mavs), and he has a tremendous height advantage. Funkhouser's athleticism is also pretty weak, so it's not like he'll be able to make up for that with quickness or jumping ability. He had a tremendous season as a facilitator though, so he will still be able to provide plenty of value there, but Carrasco is going to be a difficult matchup over a 7 game series. Funkhouser has proven himself...in the Pistons' final loss of the season, the Mavs were the victors in Dallas, and Funkhouser took home player of the game honors with a whopping 15 dimes on top of a perfect 5/5 performance from beyond the arc. As has been the theme, three point defense isn't the strongest Pistons attribute, and a lot of that could be Carrasco's weak link defense. His perimeter defense is only C-level, and while Peewee and Hoyt have great defensive skills, the Mavs can shoot over them with their height. Turn those threes up to 10. Not every night is going to be a .667 3-pt shooting night (which was the case against the Pistons in the Mavs victory over them), but you'll need 4 games with at least .400 clip to beat the Pistons.
Especially if the Mavs take a 2-0 lead on the Spurs, I'd use games 3-4 to pull back from the heavy workloads the starters have relied on to see which bench players are going to perform in the playoffs. The Mavs will at least need a solid 6th man to slot into the starting lineup if needed or have someone that can keep the Mavs in the game when the starters need rest. I imagine a Mavs/Pistons finals is going to have the Mavs playing all their starters 48 minutes. For this reason, the Mavs should hope their series ends quicker than Wiz/Pistons and that the Alpha teams take some chunks out of each other. Their biggest advantage is facing a sub-.500 team. I don't want to count the Spurs out, but this should give the Mavs some leeway to maybe not have to push their starters as hard as they did against the hobbled Warriors.
So who's go the best shot?
Of the three teams, I'd have to go with the Wizards. They're the only team with depth. The Mavericks are a good team with a great starting lineup, but they're facing an actualized, better version of their own team, and it's really hard to match up with that. The Spurs aren't a deep team, and they're not even expecting to be here, so they're playing with house money at this point, but the deck is stacked heavily against them. The Wizards are the only team that looks different than Detroit on paper and has the most counteractive strengths where Detroit is weak.
But at the end of the day, they're all longshots. The more interesting and divisive question might be: can the Pistons sweep the playoffs?