Pistons vs Knicks Picks, Prediction Today | Monday, Feb. 26

Here's everything you need to know about Pistons vs. Knicks on Monday, Feb. 26 — our expert prediction and betting picks for today.

The Knicks have a daunting seven-game stretch ahead of them beginning on Tuesday night against the New Orleans Pelicans, so a loss to the Pistons on Monday would be rather deflating heading into such an important part of the calendar.

Detroit rides in on a five-game losing streak, but it's been playing some better basketball. What happens here in New York?

Let's get to our Pistons vs. Knicks prediction and pick.

The Pistons' offense remains a disaster, particularly after shipping off Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks to the Knicks. They were able to pick up Quentin Grimes, Malachi Flynn and Evan Fournier in return, but those three haven't done enough to make a meaningful impact in their short time with the team. There's still time, given Grimes just debuted last time out against the Magic, but this offense is still one of the tougher ones to watch in the NBA.

The good news is that this defense has been steadily improving, and over the last five games it ranks right around the middle of the league in efficiency. Unfortunately one of Detroit's biggest impact defenders is big man Isaiah Stewart, who's currently serving a suspension, so this team is going to be behind the proverbial 8-ball just about any way you slice it against a very efficient Knicks offense.

The Pistons' somewhat solid rim protection will take a hit without Stewart, but it's already been very bad over the course of this month, allowing 69.5% of shots to fall within four feet which ranks fourth-worst in the league. This team has also somehow gotten worse in terms of its 3-point defense, and while it has done a good job against mid-range jumpers teams have been able to get shots up from deep at a very high rate.

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The Knicks do love to shoot the long ball, but in the month of February they have been getting to the rim a bit more than they normally do. While we don't always see the most efficient offenses getting to the rim a lot, the uptick has been ever so slight and with the state of this Pistons frontcourt, relying on the defensively-challenged James Wiseman, buckets should come thick and fast.

Despite a tough loss to the Celtics, New York is beginning to look like it did a month ago thanks to the return of some key players. OG Anunoby and Julius Randle remain out for the next few weeks, but Jalen Bruson, Isaiah Hartenstein, Donte DiVincenzo and Bojan Bogdanovic have been nursed back to full health after some minor injuries prior to the break. This should give the Knicks a much better look on offense than we saw at the start of the month, and while they've fallen a bit flat on defense it's not as if the Pistons pose much of a threat scoring the ball.

The key for me in this one will be the Knicks' performance from outside. Their 3-point frequency has dropped by roughly one percentage point in the month of February according to Cleaning the Glass, but in two games since the break they're taking them at a blistering 42.4% clip and knocking down 38.9% of them. The Pistons can't stop the three, and if those trends continue into New York's third game since the break this should be overwhelming for Detroit.

This is a large number, and we've seen the Knicks beat up on bad teams like this at home only to let them back in late. With that said, the Pistons can't shoot the ball nearly well enough to come back once this Knicks offense gets rolling against a defense which has looked a lot worse without Stewart.

New York's blistering start out of the gates from long range should make a big impact here, and with the steep downgrade in frontcourt defense and rebounding from Stewart to Wiseman, I don't believe New York will struggle whatsoever to score the ball and grab firm control of this game early.

Detroit is steadily improving on the defensive end, but I don't think this is nearly enough to make this a competitive game given the state of its offense. I'll lay the points with a team that's 12-8 against the spread as a home favorite.

Pick: Knicks -11.5 (-110)

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