The Detroit Pistons Defense Has Changed Everything

14. That is the number of games the Detroit Pistons won during the 2023 NBA season. It was and still is the fewest games the team has ever won in a single season in franchise history. Clearly, they had hit rock bottom.

Unfortunately, the Pistons had gotten used to losing by this point. From 2019 to 2023, a span of five seasons, the Pistons failed to win 25 games in a single season just once. They never finished higher than fourth in their division during this time.

This makes what they’re doing right now absolutely mind-boggling.

Over halfway through the 2025 season, the Pistons are 44-14, and they stand as the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. This would’ve been unthinkable just a few years ago, but the Pistons are legitimately one of the best teams in the NBA.

There are many reasons why the Pistons have turned things around and become an elite team. Many people will credit the development of Cade Cunningham for their rise from the ashes, and who can blame them? However, I want to take a different angle, because, as good as Cade Cunningham is as an offensive engine, I don’t think the Pistons would have reached this level of dominance without their defense becoming one of the top units in the NBA.

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This season, the Detroit Pistons have a defensive rating of 109.2, meaning they are allowing just 109.2 points per 100 possessions. This is the second-best mark in the NBA behind the Oklahoma City Thunder and just ahead of the San Antonio Spurs.

It’s incredible that the Pistons have become this good defensively, because they were nowhere near this level just a couple of years ago. Their current defensive rating is 6.2 points better than the league average, meaning they are allowing 6.2 fewer points per 100 possessions than the average defense. In 2023, the season they won just 14 games, they had a defensive rating of 113.1, which was 3.5 points worse than the league average.

Defense is a fascinating thing to discuss because there are so many moving parts that make a defense operate effectively. You've got to be able to defend at the point of attack, you've got to play smart help defense, you have to navigate screens, you have to make smart rotations, and of course, you can shut down a possession by taking the ball away from your opponent.

The Pistons’ defense is incredibly strong all around, and I’d argue that they don’t have that many weaknesses on this end of the floor. They are pretty good at everything I just mentioned, but one of their biggest strengths is their ability to shut down possessions by stealing the ball and blocking shots.

The Pistons are a big and athletic team, and they use this to their advantage. They play an aggressive style of defense, and they utilize their length to disrupt ball handlers consistently. Guys like Ausar Thompson, Javonte Green, Ron Holland, and Paul Reed have been so good at generating steals this season, as all four rank in the top 15 in steal rate among players with at least 30 games played.

Here is a chart from BBall-Index, which shows where each NBA team ranks in two metrics that measure their ability to generate steals and deflect and intercept passes. Pickpocket rating, which is on the X axis, measures how many steals a team generates per 75 possessions. Passing lane defense, which is on the Y axis, measures how many deflections and interceptions a team records per 75 possessions. As you can see, the Pistons are among the best teams in the league in both metrics.

On top of this, they are really good at erasing shots at the basket. The Pistons do a great job of rotating on defense, and they have a few rim protectors who love to hunt for the ball and spike it like an attacker in volleyball. Isaiah Stewart and Paul Reed, two of the Pistons' big men, have been very active as rim protectors this year as they sport some of the best block rates in the NBA.

What I find fascinating about this part of the Pistons' defense is how productive their non-bigs have been at blocking shots. It's not normal for teams to have their guards and wings blocking a lot of shots, but we're seeing that happen with the Pistons as they have four non-bigs who have a block rate of 2% and above.

The Pistons' ability to disrupt possessions is abundantly clear when you look at how often they generate steals and blocks. They currently lead the league in steals and blocks per 100 possessions, making them the most disruptive defense in the NBA.

I mentioned earlier that there are a lot of moving parts when it comes to defense in basketball. I'd argue that the most impactful thing you can do on defense is steal the ball and block shots because these actions either end a possession or prevent a shot from going in. The fact that the Pistons are so good at doing both of these things makes it obvious why their defense is so dominant.

Another thing the Pistons do at a high level is defend pick-and-rolls, and this is immensely important for the modern game because pick-and-rolls are the foundation of most modern offenses.

What makes the Pistons so good at handling pick-and-rolls is the fact that they are fantastic at navigating screens. Their players are big and strong, which allows them to fight through screens, and they are amazing at making quick rotations. This makes it really hard for opposing offenses to get them out of position on defense. It really feels like they are everywhere all the time.

The Pistons have one of the most productive pick-and-roll defenses in the NBA as they rank top five in points per play allowed when defending PnR ball handlers and PnR roll men.

I mentioned earlier that the Pistons are good at navigating screens, and BBall-Index has metrics that measure how teams perform in this area. They have two metrics for this: screener rim defense and screener mobile defense.

Screener rim defense measures how good teams are at defending screening actions while prioritizing rim protection. Screener mobile defense is similar, but this stat measures how good teams are at defending screening actions while prioritizing on-ball containment. The Pistons and the Rockets are the only teams in the NBA that rank in the 90th percentile or above in both metrics.

No matter what angle you take to evaluate the Pistons' defense, it looks really freaking good. They do everything well, from defending at the point of attack to disrupting passing lanes and blocking shots. Detroit's front office has constructed a roster of young, long, athletic players who have developed into an unpenetrable machine that obliterates opposing offenses.

If the Pistons make a deep playoff run this year, I think it will be because of their defense. Cade Cunningham has certainly transformed their offense and taken it to new heights, but I believe this team goes wherever its defense takes it, and I'm excited to see how far the Pistons go.