The Detroit Pistons have a core that is great for the future. They are just below the cluster of teams that are fighting for the 3rd to 6th seeds and have separated themselves from the Bulls and the Wizards. It’s been a successful year for the Pistons.
But there’s one glaring problem, their main man, Andre Drummond, is still trash at shooting. In their recent scrappy win against Chicago, Drummond was 1-10, for free throws. Not good at all. Now sure we’ve known that Drummond can’t shoot for a long time now, but head coach Stan Van Gundy is getting a little weary about it now.
The Pistons center was 1 of 10 on free throws and Van Gundy had to pull him both halves when Chicago started fouling intentionally. Drummond was limited to 28 minutes but yanking him is not an automatic decision, the coach said. “Score, time of the game and the whole thing, go into it,” Van Gundy said. “But tonight he was 1 for 10. He made the decision easy tonight. It’s not like he was 5 for 10 or anything else. In a close game like that, back and forth, we can’t be playing hoping for one point, at most, when they’re playing for two or three. You can’t do that. You’re putting way too much pressure on your defense. Aron Baynes is a good player. I thought tonight, at the end of the game, that was an easy decision. First half, it was a little harder decision. He was 1 for 4 and we took him out at 1 for 4. That was a little harder decision. We were up one, it was first half. But the second half, that was easy.“
It’s starting to get to the point where Stan Van Gundy has to think about the 4th quarter strategy, is Andre Drummond worth the intentional fouling?
