Game Recap: Pistons Can't Complete Comeback Against Nets

The Pistons defense that had been so highly touted over the last three games fell flat in the first half against Brooklyn, allowing 71 points on an embarrassingly good 71% shooting from the field.

Early on, we knew it would be a shootout, as the Nets led 38-31 after the firsts quarter. Brooklyn's Brook Lopez showed off his 3-point shot, which was recently added to his offensive arsenal, as he went 4-8 on the game. Lopez finished with a game high 34 points and 11 boards, dominating on both sides of the ball. Sean Kilpatrick, a backup at best on a decent team, proved everyone wrong en route to 24 points and 10 rebounds, also going 4-4 from 3.

With a big deficit to diminish and Jeremy Lin out with a strained hamstring, the Pistons turned up their D in the second half, only allowing 38 points. The Pistons pulled within single digits multiple times in the third, but couldn't bring it within 5 until the middle of the 4th. For the second straight game, Drummond was a non-factor, not even touching the court in the final quarter. The late game heroics came from other sources, as Marcus Morris and Tobias Harris did everything they could to lead the Pistons to victory, combining for 46, 23 each. Beno Udrih and Jon Leuer also contributed double digit points off the bench.

In the end, the poor first half defense killed us, as Brooklyn ended the night shooting 53/48/82 as a team for the game, as everybody on the team seemed to be hot. They also outrebounded Detroit 45-38 and had 6 more assists than us.

Detroit takes on Denver at home next, before heading out west for a few games. Our defense will need to step up against a couple of inter-conference teams next week, or we'll be looking at a couple more in the loss column.

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