Detroit Pistons: How important is winning the 6-seed?

The Detroit Pistons have the 6-seed in the Eastern Conference right now, but they need to hold onto it to have their best opportunity to make some playoff noise.

The Detroit Pistons have had a great last month, and they’ve been playing their best basketball of the entire season. While they’ve steadily pushed up from out of the playoffs to solidly in playoff contention, they still have to keep pushing to give themselves the best chance of making some noise in a playoff series.

They’re currently in possessions of the 6-seed in the Eastern Conference, but it only takes a small slip-up for them to move down to seventh or eighth.

They’re just barely ahead of the Brooklyn Nets for the 6-seed right now, but they have a two-game advantage in the loss column. They’ve also played four fewer games. This means they’re going to have far less rest as a result of having a more spaced-out schedule to this point. They’re likely going to make the playoffs barring a major slip-up, but how much of a difference will it make if they can’t hold onto the sixth seed?

The top two teams in the conference, the Milwaukee Bucks and Toronto Raptors, have been a head above the rest of the Eastern Conference for the majority of the season. The Raptors hold a four-game lead over the third-place Indiana Pacers and a five-game lead over the Philadelphia 76ers in fourth place. That gap may not seem too large, but the numbers tell a different story about just how much better they’ve been.

The Bucks are still the only team that sits in the top five in both offensive and defensive rating, while the Raptors are sixth and eighth in offensive and defensive rating, respectively. The Pacers, Sixers and struggling Boston Celtics aren’t better than either of the top two teams on the offensive end, and the Pacers are the only team that’s better on the defensive end. The difference between facing the second or third seed in the first round could result in a very different series.

The Pistons are playing some of their best basketball, and they have the size to cause teams issues. They can force teams to stay big when their best lineups involve a smaller center on the floor. When the Pacers are playing their best lineup, it’s with Myles Turner on the floor, but he struggles with bigger centers like Andre Drummond. Blake Griffin is also a tough cover for a lot of power forwards because he’s still very athletic for his sheer size.

They also don’t have the defense to slow down the league’s best offenses, or the offense to keep up with teams like the Bucks when they’re humming, as they hung 117 points on the Pacers, who own the second-best defensive rating in the league.

Detroit has only scored more than 130 points twice this season in the third and 63rd games. If the Pistons get into a long, grind-it-out series against the team that wins the 3-seed though, they could steal a couple of games and make it interesting.

Of their 19 remaining games, 10 of them are against teams that are currently in the playoffs, and two more of those are against teams that are in the thick of the playoff race. It’s going to be a tough battle for Detroit to hold onto this spot, but it’s not impossible. The Pistons almost need to in order to have their best shot at making some playoff noise.