Detroit Pistons sacrifice offense to prioritize 'core five' by starting Isaiah Stewart

Isaiah Stewart returned from a long absence Tuesday. The Detroit Pistons became a very different team while he was gone.

Veterans Bojan Bogdanovic, Alec Burks and Monte Morris were traded. Other players were waived. The Pistons' second unit now consists almost entirely of new faces, with Simone Fontecchio and Quentin Grimes securing the biggest roles out of all of the newcomers.

"It was a lot, but I got a chance to watch the guys play before I got a chance to get out there with them," Stewart said after practice on Thursday. "I thought they looked good. I thought they competed hard and meshed well. We’ve got some really great guys and some really great teammates that have great energy. You see the bench energy is great. I feel like on-court, everybody is meshing well together."

The front office wants to get a good look at the two 3-and-D wings as they approach free agency and extension eligibility this offseason. But this season is still about the development of their recent draft picks, too. Stewart, after missing 11 games due to an ankle sprain and three-game suspension, resumed his place in the starting lineup on Tuesday and finished with 11 points and nine rebounds in a win over the Chicago Bulls.

He did so while sharing the floor with most of Detroit's recent first-round picks. The roster changes at the trade deadline cleared a path for the team to prioritize its young core down the stretch, as they are now unburdened from deferring to two shot-happy veterans in Bogdanovic and Burks. With Stewart back, Monty Williams intends to do just that.

With 24 games remaining, the Pistons have nearly a third of the season remaining to gather more information on how their core five players — Stewart, Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren — fit alongside each other, and if they can sustain Tuesday’s strong performance.

“Going forward, we’re gonna try to run with this first group for a while just to see how these guys play together and if they can get some synergy, especially on the defensive end,” Williams said on Thursday. “If that group can keep getting stops like that and we can play in transition, that’s the best of both worlds.”

Tuesday was only the ninth game this season to feature the five-player lineup. It was their third time starting together, with the previous two games being at home three months ago against the Washington Wizards and Los Angeles Lakers on Nov. 27 and 29.

The unit has tallied just 63 total minutes thus far, but won those minutes by eight points. Both the Wizards and Lakers games were double-digit losses in the midst of the historic 28-game losing streak. Tuesday’s 105-95 win in Chicago was a better result, as the Bulls scored the fewest points of any Pistons opponent this season and hit a scant two of their 29 3-point attempts.

It’s too small a sample size to draw conclusions from, though. A lot of factors have prevented the Pistons from playing the five together. Ivey and Thompson have bounced in and out of the starting lineup. Cunningham and Duren have missed 10 and 15 games, respectively. Stewart has missed 22.

MORE: Cade Cunningham would like to get a fair whistle. But is he already?

In swapping Fontecchio out for Stewart in the starting lineup, the Pistons lose some spacing but gain size, rebounding and defense. The fourth-year big man gives the team a physicality it has often lacked this season, not just because of his playstyle, but also because of Detroit’s lack of depth at the position. The Pistons were outrebounded in their previous four games before winning that battle against Chicago, 47-39.

Stewart isn’t a bad shooter — his career-best 37.2% mark this season is above league average. But he’s a lower-volume shooter compared to other power forwards, and opposing defenses have been content playing off of him, daring him to shoot. Percentage-wise, Stewart is the most accurate shooter of the five players, but his release takes a while to get off. Fontecchio is making 39.6% of his attempts and is more willing to take them.

The gamble is that Stewart’s defense will make up for the starting lineup having less spacing. Cunningham, sometimes as a byproduct of how aggressively teams defended him when he was surrounded by poor shooters, struggled with turnovers and navigating crowds earlier this season. He had no such issues on Tuesday, scoring 26 points on 9-for-13 overall shooting with five assists and three turnovers.

Starting Stewart with Duren and Thompson also pairs Detroit’s three most physical defenders together, as well as two of its best defenders in Stewart and Thompson.

“The toughness that Stewy displays, it’s all within the confines of the game,” he said. “The physicality. I think over time, it can wear on players. Sometimes guys stop driving or they stop setting screens, or they just back up. He’s just a big, physical dude that can also shoot the ball.”

Fontecchio thrived with the second unit Tuesday, scoring 11 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter to keep the Pistons afloat while Cunningham rested after playing most of the third. That included three 3-pointers and a layup following an offensive rebound. Fontecchio stayed on the floor with Cunningham and three other starters for a few minutes before Williams made his final substitution of the night, sending Thompson back into the game with 5 minutes to play.

The Pistons were a solid defensive team with Fontecchio starting — in their seven games before Stewart’s return, their defensive rating of 113.3 ranked 15th. Their poorer offensive rating (106.9, 24th) is a bigger factor in why the team was 1-6 in those games, though they likely were robbed of a win against the Knicks on Monday due to a missed call.

It remains to be seen if the offense sags too much with Stewart starting. But Fontecchio provided a big lift to the struggling second unit and was the connective tissue allowing for the starters to finish strong. Williams didn’t anticipate how Fontecchio would fare, given the overall newness of Detroit’s bench, but his performance was a sign that he can thrive with or without the starters next to him.

“I like his skill set and how it matched what we do — the size, the ability to switch, the physicality — and then he shoots the ball,” Williams said of Fontecchio. "He plays in 0.5. I saw that on film. But you never know how that’s gonna work out. That group is basically five new guys on the floor, since (James Wiseman) is a developing big, Malachi (Flynn’s) played a lot these last few games, Evan (Fournier’s) new, (Fontecchio’s) new and Quentin (Grimes) is new. It would be hard to say what you’re gonna get, but his skillset does fit the way we want to play.”

The first unit, for now, is set. But Williams is likely to continue tinkering with his second unit, which is awaiting the return of Marcus Sasser from a right knee contusion. Fontecchio’s the type of 3-and-D forward that can mesh with any lineup. It gives the coaching staff some flexibility approaching the final stretch of the season.

“I feel like there’s gonna be times where it’s gonna be Tek (Fontecchio), it’s gonna be Ausar, it could be Tek and Ausar and Stewy and we just go big and switch everything,” Williams said. “I think we have that capability now.”

Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him @omarisankofa.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Pistons to ride with 'core five' with Isaiah Stewart back