Pistons vs Sixers preview: First and only ESPN game against healthy Sixers

After a trade deadline in which the Detroit Pistons added a much-needed secondary ball handler in Dennis Schroder, they now get to play their first and only ESPN game of the season (unless they get more added). Playing on ESPN isn’t that big of a deal for a team like the Philadelphia 76ers, but for an up-and-coming Pistons team with an All-Star in Cade Cunningham, you would think the league wants to showcase him more with more national TV games, but so far they have not added anymore.

This will be one of the few times this season in which Paul George, Tyrese Maxey, and Joel Embiid have played together, which, of course, has to happen against the Pistons, who could be without Cade Cunningham after he rolled his ankle against the Cavaliers on Wednesday. He is currently listed as questionable, but given how much the Pistons have played in the last couple of weeks, I would say he probably won’t play.

So, this game could be the worst possible scenario for the Pistons, coming off back-to-back heartbreaking losses to the Hawks and Cavaliers on last-second shots and facing a mostly healthy Sixers team.

Game Vitals

When: 7:30 p.m. ET
Where: Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, MI
Watch: ESPN or Fan Duel Sports Network Detroit
Odds: Pistons +3.5

Analysis

I know I said above that I think Cunningham will not play tonight, but I am holding out some hope that he does play since this is a nationally televised game. I doubt he or the team cares that much when they are going to need him healthy down the stretch, but his rolled ankle on Wednesday did not look like something severe, and he even played the last few minutes of the game. There have been plenty of times in the history of this sport where a player finishes out a game after an injury and then realizes how much it hurts the next day, so that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

It is unknown whether Dennis Schroder will play since the trade was just processed yesterday. I believe that he could play if Cunningham ends up missing tonight, but if Cade plays, they may hold him out and wait until Sunday’s game against the Hornets. This isn’t one of those scenarios where the team is still waiting for the trade to process, it has been finalized with the league, it is just a matter of whether the team wants to throw him out there after just joining the team. And having only one healthy “point guard” in Marcus Sasser could be reason enough to throw him out there.

With the 76ers fully healthy, this game was going to be tough regardless of whether Cunningham plays, but without Cade, I don’t foresee any way the Pistons win this game. The 76ers’ “Big Three” doesn’t instill the level of fear people thought it would before the season, but the individual talent of all three players is better than that of any other player on the Pistons outside of Cade.

Tyrese Maxey has been great, leading the 76ers in scoring at 27.9 points per game. However, Paul George has been a disaster. He is averaging his lowest scoring since his second season at 16.9 points while only playing in 31 games so far and shooting 42% from the field and 37% beyond the arc. He was supposed to be a huge upgrade over Tobias Harris for the 76ers, but he has only been a marginal upgrade so far.

The biggest reason for the Sixers only being 20-30 on the season, though, is Joel Embiid. He has only played in 14 games this year and has not been this inefficient as a scorer since his 2nd year in the league. Granted, a lot of his issues with efficiency can be tied to the fact that he has been injured most of the year, but it is still not a recipe for success. However, Embiid did have a triple-double in his first game since early January on Tuesday against the Mavericks. He also tends to torch the Pistons every time they play because the Pistons just cannot stop themselves from fouling him.

The only trade the 76ers made at the deadline was trading Caleb Martin for Quentin Grimes and also sending KJ Martin to the Pistons, who were then traded for Dennis Schroder. This means that this is the core the 76ers are locked into for the rest of the season, so they have to hope for health the rest of the year if they want to make a late run back into the playoff race. It sounds like Grimes should be available to play against his now former-former team.

This game seemed insignificant a few months ago, but now it is a game that could have some bearing in the play-in tournament standings when we reach the end of the season. It is also a chance for the Pistons to get the dirty taste of the blowout loss to a short-handed 76ers team the last time these two teams faced off. If the Pistons do happen to be in a position to win, let’s hope they put the game away so they don’t lose on another last-second shot.