Pistons at Knicks
The Detroit Pistons are the only team in the NBA that is still unbeaten at home (5-0), but road games are not quite as easy. The Pistons, who snapped a five-game road slide beginning the season with a 106-95 win at Denver on Saturday, will try to make it back-to-back road wins when they visit the New York Knicks for the start of a two-game trip on Wednesday.
Detroit's win at Denver salvaged a 1-3 road trip and the momentum carried over to an impressive performance in a brief stop at home and a 104-88 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday. “Well, our defense at home has been great," Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy told reporters. "What we need to do is try to get our defense on the road up to the level of what it has been at home. For whatever reason, that is something that should be pretty consistent from night to night." The Knicks are in a similar predicament and allowed an average of 116.5 points in back-to-back road losses before returning home on Monday and locking down on that end in a 93-77 win over the Dallas Mavericks. New York coach Jeff Hornacek made a change at halftime in the win, leaving center Joakim Noah on the bench and going with a smaller lineup, and watched his team outscore the Mavericks 31-12 in the third quarter.
TV: 7:30 p.m. ET, FSN Detroit, MSG (New York)
ABOUT THE PISTONS (6-5): Detroit center Andre Drummond sat out Monday with a right ankle injury and Aron Baynes delivered 20 points on 8-of-13 shooting and eight rebounds in the spot start. "He’s a starting center in the NBA," Van Gundy told reporters of Baynes. "He’s just playing behind an All-Star. But he’s a starting-caliber center in this league, so it’s not surprising that he played as well as he did." Drummond was enjoying a string of five straight double-doubles before sitting out Monday and is day-to-day.
ABOUT THE KNICKS (4-6): The decision to sit Noah for the second half on Monday allowed New York to space the floor with Kristaps Porzingis moving to center, Carmelo Anthony sliding to power forward and Justin Holiday starting in the backcourt. "It's hard to win in this league and it's a team game," Noah told reporters. "I'm happy we got the 'W.'" Hornacek said after the game that Noah would be back in the starting lineup due to his strong defense, but he won't hesitate to use Holiday with the starting group more in the future.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Detroit SF Tobias Harris is 17-of-31 from the field in the last two games after going 12-of-38 in the previous three contests.
2. Knicks PG Derrick Rose slumped to three points on 1-of-6 shooting on Monday and had as many turnovers (five) as assists.
3. The home team took each of the last four meetings, including Detroit's 102-89 win on Nov. 1.