Gameday Preview: Boston Kicks Off the New Year Against a Winless Pistons Squad
Creator: Matt Stone | Credit: BH | Copyright: Copyright - 2020 Boston Herald, MediaNews
Happy New Year everybody! The Celtics are 3-2 through their first five games and have their sixth game tonight against a winless Detroit Pistons team.
Boston has looked much better in their past two games than they did in their first three. If it weren’t for a miracle shot against Milwaukee they would be sitting under .500 right now. While the win against Indiana wasn’t completely clean, their victory over Memphis was a sneak peek at what the best version of this team could look like. The offense was flowing, the defense looked solid, and it was a wire-to-wire win for the guys in green. Now it must be mentioned that the Grizzlies were horrifically undermanned in that game, but regardless the C’s played their best basketball of the season.
A lot of this praise should be credited to none other than Jaylen Brown who set a career-high in points against the Grizzlies with 42. He started off red hot from deep and was an absolute stud all night long. The rest of the team played well, too, with Jayson Tatum dropping 16 and young guns Payton Pritchard and Robert Williams III continuing their solid play. This is the type of basketball Boston is going to have to play if they want to make noise in the East.
The Pistons, on the other hand, aren’t going to be making much noise anytime soon. They are one of two winless teams left in the NBA, and while they have managed to make their games competitive, they just don’t have a ton of great talent on the roster. After a series of questionable moves this offseason, including letting Christian Wood leave for Houston on a deal they should have matched, their roster is left in a state of abnormality. Jerami Grant has been their best player thus far, and while he is averaging roughly 23 points and six rebounds, if he’s the best player on the roster then the team most likely won’t be too good. Detroit does have a solid young core, however, drafting Killian Hayes, Saddiq Bey, and Isaiah Stewart in the 2020 NBA Draft.
While it’s impossible to tell which Celtics will come to play against the Pistons, it should be safe to say that they will have one of their easiest matchups yet. They’ll be taking on Detroit twice in a row, too, with the second game being on Sunday, January 3rd. If all goes to plan this should be a relatively easy two-game series before the C’s head back on the road again to take on the struggling Raptors.
Make sure to tune in to our live pregame show, the Banner Town Buildup, 30 minutes before game time at 6:30 PM EST on the @GuyBostonSports Twitter account. The Celtics tip-off against the Pistons at 7:00 PM EST on NBC Sports Boston.
