Regardless of your thoughts on the current status of the team, opening night is an exciting time for everybody. Whatever you imagine of your favorite team in your wildest dreams can still be reality until they step on the floor for the first time.
The Pistons currently have a better record than 2 teams, what a start! They have a new coach and some new players, so anything is possible.
Let’s live it up and have a fun opening night!
Game Vitals
Where: Keseya Center in Miami, FL
When: Wednesday, Oct. 25 at 7:30 PM EST
Watch: Bally Sports Detroit
Odds: Miami (-9.0)
Analysis
It is a very rare that a team starts the season short-handed with players that did not have any offseason surgery or didn’t play in the preseason, but the Pistons are facing that reality as they will be without both Monte Morris and Bojan Bogdanovic.
Morris is an offseason addition that was expected to bring stability to the backup point guard position while Bogdanovic is currently the Pistons best shooter and led the team in scoring last season. Neither loss is ideal, but you have to accept the hand you are dealt.
For Miami, they should be at full strength. They enter this matchup coming off a loss in the NBA Finals to the Denver Nuggets, so they have all the motivation to show that last year’s run to the Finals as an 8 seed was not a fluke. However, there is also the other side of the coin where they could be a little less motivated by facing the NBA’s worst team last season on opening night at home and be caught off guard by a young, energetic team.
It is pretty much the only hope the Pistons have at winning this game.
Based on all the offseason speculation, this was supposed to be Damian Lillard’s debut with the Miami Heat (sorry Heat fans), instead they pretty much trot out the same roster as last season. They did lose a couple of key role players in Gabe Vincent and Max Strus in the offseason, but the Miami Heat grow role players on trees, so I don’t think it will have too big of an affect.
As long as they have Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, the Heat are going to be competitive every night. The Pistons actually do have the bodies to matchup with them with Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren, respectively; but both players are young and in the case of Thompson, playing an NBA game for the first time.
The Heat also have Tyler Herro’s scoring punch off the bench as he was the likely piece that would have been included in a Damian Lillard trade. Jaden Ivey might be taking on a similar role to Herro this season as it appears he will begin the season coming off the bench. It should be fun to see the two of them go at it off the bench if that is the case.
Cade Cunningham has spent the preseason shaking off the rust after missing most of last season, and the Pistons will need him to get off to a faster start than he usually does if they want any hope at winning not only this game, but more games this season. It would not surprise me if Cunningham is guarded by Jimmy Butler on offense since he has the size to body him up on defense and the Pistons don’t really have anybody else out on the perimeter that will strike fear into teams offensively.
I am not sure what Monty Williams’ plan is for the starting lineup with two likely key role players missing, so what you see tonight could look very different from what you see next week. I think Alec Burks will get the start since he got the start in the first preseason game in place of Bogdanovic. But your guess is as good as mine.
Projected Lineups
Detroit Pistons (0-0): Cade Cunningham, Alec Burks, Ausar Thompson, Isaiah Stewart, Jalen Duren
Miami Heat (0-0): Kyle Lowry, Jimmy Butler, Caleb Martin, Kevin Love, Bam Adebayo
Question of the Day
What are you most looking forward to this season?