team by team stats are really interesting

click and fool around

detroit's perimeter might be THE best in the game; while detroit is easily tops in the game, followed by san antonio, and we know both teams are atrocious on the defensive end, it's interesting to see how they stack up.

look at fg% of the opponents. san antonio has the lowest, but detroit falls somewhere in the middle. this is partially due to the fact that marc stein has noticed that the 2 wallaces haven't been as strong as in 2004 when they 1st got rasheed; you'll notice in a lotta games, power forwards have been having their way with the pistons. that of course, doesn't mean they win em, but it's a major sight of concern.

does that mean the pistons suck on d? no... look at their 3 pt % of their opponents; it seems almost like a role reversal; detroit is probably the best perimeter defending team! although san antonio is still top 10 here. what surprised me was the lakers placing 1st, but then again, they had that time where they had a huge streak, and kobe IS one of the best perimeter defenders. quite honestly, i think detroit has the best perimeter defense; you got tay, but i started to see the light how good billups was last year, and rip is SLOWLY improving in that area as well.

granted detroit is still one of the leaders in points allowed per game, but realize that if you constantly bring the ball up court slowly and play half court, then those numbers can seem a bit inflated. however, detroit leads in point differentials per game; +8.86. so they in that aspect, are the best team as of now.

like i said, there's more interesting observations you can make, but i'll let you do it yourself; it's more fun that way.

here's some non-pistons, non-spurs observations:

phoenix is a much better defensive team that people make them out to be.

gsw actually plays WORSE defense compared to sacramento; sad, but true. gsw's perimeter defense is SLIGHTLY better, but not by much.

miami might actually be a lot better at defense than what i originally thought; they're right behind detroit in 3pt%. and their fg% is 6th. quite honestly, that makes no sense, b/c we all know miami to not be very good in defending, especially on the perimeter. but then, they seem to on average, only win by 3.82 pts; that means there's cases where they play exceptionally well, and other cases where they don't.

of course, numbers don't tell all the story. b/c it's a common fact that houston isn't REALLY a defensive team, but more like a half-court offense team.