The Pistons Ruin the Lakers' Plans for an Undefeated Season

Obviously the Lakers were going to lose a game at some point this season, it was just a matter of how soon. In a look at the Lakers' schedule earlier this week, I said that the Lakers' match up with the Pistons would be their toughest in at least month, and that if they were able to get past them unscathed they would have a chance to build a crazy winning streak. Well, the Pistons came into Staples Center and quickly extinguished any thoughts of the Lakers going undefeated in November.

Going into last nights game I was a little bit skeptical about the Pistons chances. They did win in Golden State the previous night, but it wasn't like they played great basketball up there. Until last night it was obvious that the team was still adjusting to playing with Allen Iverson. As well, Rodney Stuckey would be playing for the first time in a while after sitting out the last few games after his dizzy spell last Sunday. There would surely be some rust there for him. Despite all this, the Pistons came out and played an almost flawless game, showing what the Iverson acquisition could mean for them.

Iverson is getting the Pistons into the paint in ways that Chauncey Billups never did. Iverson's penetration did a couple of things. First, it allowed the Pistons to put the Lakers in the foul penalty very early in quarters. I believe the Lakers had put the Pistons into the bonus situation by the eight minute mark of the fourth quarter. I can't emphasize how big that was. As well, Iverson's penetration opened up things for Rasheed Wallace to nail wide open threes. Any time the Lakers helped off of Rasheed to stop penetration, 'Sheed would make them pay, hitting four of his nine three point attempts. If the Pistons get that kind of production from Wallace, they are going to be a very tough team to stop. Only question is if he can do this on a consistent basis. We haven't seen him do that in years (since the last time he wore number 30), so I'm still a little skeptical about that one at this point.

Tayshaun Prince also brought it last night. He really is that teams MVP. Last night he was the glue, doing everything from initiating their offense, scoring, and guarding Kobe Bryant. Michael Curry has really asked Tay to take on more of a production load and so far Tay is stepping up to the plate and knocking the ball out of the park with career numbers across the board.

But probably the most surprising aspect of the Pistons' performance last night was the production from Kwame Brown. I sat right under the Pistons' second half goal and got to see Kwame actually catch the ball, gather himself and dunk the ball one handed. Did you hear that Lakers fans? KWAME BROWN DUNKED THE BALL WITH ONE HAND! And he did it about three times in the second half. That is not the Kwame Brown that Lakers fans came to know and hate. They were used to the one that threw cake and air balled lay ups. I have a feeling that Rasheed has been working on him on his post work, because the guy actually looked serviceable on the offensive end last night.

Despite the Pistons great play the Lakers still had plenty of opportunities to win this game. However, when the Lakers can't hit open jump shots, you know they are going to have a tough night. They are a team that relies on spacing, ball movement, and making teams pay for helping off of their shooters. Last night they were getting open shots, but not stepping up an hitting them. They shot 21.1% from three, while the Pistons shot 43.8%. The Lakers are going to win the three point battle ninety percent of the time. However, the times that they don't are the times that they are the most vulnerable. Last night definitely proved that.

The Lakers' other issues was the poor play of their bigs. Just looking at his numbers it doesn't seem like Pau had that bad of a game, but he definitely did. When he is not aggressive and decisive with his moves the Lakers offense definitely stagnates, and that is exactly what happened last night. 'Sheed and Kwame Brown played physical defense on Pau Gasol, and just like against the Celtics in last years Finals, Gasol became indecisive and soft around the basket. Pau will kill the Dirks and Amares of the world, because those guys are pretty bad at man to man defense. The question is what Pau is going to do against physical guys that don't go for his fakes, and play him straight up without any help. Pau did have some success at the high post, setting up Lamar Odom for score off of baseline cuts, but the Lakers rely on him to provide much more than that.

Andrew Bynum was great on the offensive boards and in defending the paint, but it's obvious that he still has a long way to go before he gets back to his 2007-08 form. Last season, Bynum was dunking everything. Right now, he still doesn't have the explosion to finish at the basket. He's missing chippies because he can't get up to finish around the rim. For instance, the Lakers bread and butter play with Bynum last season was a pick and roll play between Bynum and Bryant that would end with Bynum catching and dunking an alley oop pass from Kobe. Last night, Kobe set up Bynum perfectly for such a play and Bynum couldn't get up to dunk it, instead throwing up a soft layup that rattled out. That miss was a big momentum changer in the game. That ability to finish will eventually come back to Bynum. I recall Amare Stoudemire wasn't tearing down rims in his first few games after his return from Knee surgery in the 2006-07 season. But by December he was back to his sledgehammer ways. Bynum should start to get back to his old rim rattling ways around that time.

This game definitely showed that Pistons are still a very good team. They are still adjusting to Iverson, but his addition will give them a dimension that they never had before. With the likely return of Antonio McDyess next month, this team is only going to get better. The only question for them at this point is if they can stay healthy and keep Rasheed playing at a high level for an entire season. If they can do that, we might be seeing these two teams matching up in the 2009 NBA Finals.