Final: Celtics 128, Pistons 112 - Tatum, Brown, Hauser combine for 85

Game 11: Celtics (-12.5) vs Detroit Pistons, 7:30 p.m., TD Garden, NBCSN

Injuries: Boston - Danilo Gallinari, Robert Williams.  Detroit: Marvin Bagley (doubtful, knee), Alec Burks (questionable, foot)

Detroit probable starters: Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, Isaiah Stewart, Bojan Bogdanovic, Saddiq Bey

Refs: Tony Brothers (#25), Aaron Smith (#51), Jason Goldenberg (#35)

A little something about the game: The Pistons, a team I initially pegged as one of the young, interesting teams to watch this season, are struggling out of the gates. They have the league’s fifth-worst offense and they're next to last defensively, giving them the worst net rating in the NBA. They have the league’s worst effective field goal percentage (which is weighted to account for 3-pointers), and the league’s worst overall field goal percentage. So they can’t shoot and can’t defend. They also turn the ball over a bunch and they can’t rebound very well, so it’s no wonder Boston is favored by 12.5. However, the Pistons spent a lot of time being bad last season and they still played well against the Celtics, so I’m not looking past them.

How Boston wins: The Celtics have a real shot to goose their defensive rating here. The Pistons turn it over 15 times a game, so they’ll give up some transition opportunities. The Celtics need to defend without fouling, get out and run, and pile up some easy points. The Pistons take the seventh-most shots at the rim in the league, but they have the NBA’s worst field goal percentage there. Box out, get the ball up the floor, and pile up the transition points. Boston should be able to win the fastbreak points battle by a mile. The Celtics have the best half court offense in the NBA, so if they can add a bunch of fastbreak points early, this should be a fourth quarter garbage time game.

How Detroit wins: They actually have the league’s fourth-best free throw rate and eighth-best offensive rebounding percentage, so the Celtics have to be careful about playing with fire here. The Pistons are not good, but they are tough and Cunningham will put pressure on the paint. It’s not far-fetched to see the defense overreact to Cunningham drives and then see someone sneak in for a putback and a foul. Boston has had problems with that before this season, and if they're lazy, we can see the Pistons hang around with putbacks and free throws. They're tenth in the NBA in putback points and they're averaging seven more free throw attempts and makes in their three wins this season, so if Boston doesn’t box out and ends up fouling a lot, the Pistons have a chance. 

Things I’m looking for:

- Effort from the beginning: I feel like there is a recipe for disaster in this game for the Celtics. They’ve won three straight, they're feeling good, the Pistons are terrible, and the Denver Nuggets are in town on Friday. This has “trap game” written all over it, so Joe Mazzulla has to make sure his guys are focused from the jump. Now, not all trap games end up as losses, but there's no reason to even get to that point. What the Celtics need is for me to write the sentence “the best stat of the night was that no one played more than 29 minutes” in my postgame report. That will happen with early focus, running in transition, and building a 35-15 first quarter lead. 

- Boxing out: Yup, I’m going to harp on this. Be aware of Stewart rolling to the rim on Cunningham drives. 

- Closing out on Bey: Saddiq Bey is a career 35.9% 3-point shooter. He’s shooting 62.5% in his career against the Celtics, including nights of 7-7, 4-4, and 5-6. I don’t know why he loves shooting against the Celtics this much, but how about knocking that percentage down a bit with some good, hard, disciplined closeouts? 

- Jaylen Brown efficiency: Brown looked dominant in the preseason and looked poised to have an explosive start to the year. However, while his scoring is up, his efficiency is down. He’s only shooting 33.8% on 3-pointers through 10 games, which would be the lowest percentage of his career if it held up all season. That's dragging his effective field goal percentage down, but he’s also shooting 51.6% on two pointers, the lowest percentage since his first two seasons. His assist percentage is down five points from last year and his turnover rate (12.6%) is up a percentage point. And all of his is while his usage rate is exactly the same as it was last year (30.5%).

His shooting is below league average across the board, except his free throw percentage. At 84.6%, it’s nearly nine full percentage points higher than his career best. That gives some hope that he can break out of this slump, but he has to figure out how to get back to being the guy he was a month ago. Stop forcing it, and the openings will come.

Follow along below or in the comments during the game, chime in, and let’s have fun.