Daniel Shirey-USA Today Sports
Detroit Pistons coach Lawrence Frank called it frustration basketball. Whatever it is, Jason Maxiell and his teammates need to avoid it this week.
The Pistons let one get away over the weekend in an NBA loss to the Utah Jazz.
They were coming off an impressive Friday win on the road over the Milwaukee Bucks Friday and seemed poise to net a home victory.
But this is just a team that’s hard to figure out at times.
This particular game, the Pistons were terrible defensively, allowing the Jazz to shoot 59 perent from the floor from the second quarter and on the rest of the game.
“They started getting some confidence because they started to get easy paint scores and the ball movement we had in the first quarter, we lacked,” said Frank. “I thought we played some frustration basketball. We attacked in tight spaces that led to their transition. At the end of the day they scored 35 points in the post and 18 points in transition and a lot of that transition started in the second half of that third quarter.”
Maxiell noted that his team wasn’t necessarily able to adjust to the Jazz’s physical play.
“With the second unit out, they got aggressive,” Maxiell said. “Our second unit is more of a drive-and-kick-out to the three-point line, which they did, and they got shots.”
But what’s frustrating for Maxiell and his teammates is not being able to carry over the momentum from Friday’s win to Saturday.
“Of course. It was a good win last night and coming into today we had a good feeling about the game,” Maxiell said. “We had good notice and we have a great vibe right now. It came out to be a tough loss tonight.”
