- 1 Brooklyn Nets vs Detroit Pistons: an 0-4 team that keeps losing by one possession
- 2 Brooklyn Nets: 114.3 points a game scored, 124.0 allowed, and close finishes on the road
- 3 Detroit Pistons: 9 of 37 from three at the Garden, and no Duren for two weeks
- 4 Free NBA Prediction: Brooklyn Nets vs Detroit Pistons
- 5 About our free predictions
- 6 No commitment from us
- 7 Information changes
- 8 Your responsibility
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Brooklyn Nets vs Detroit Pistons: an 0-4 team that keeps losing by one possession 
Jayson Tatum hit a 17-foot jumper at the overtime buzzer in Boston on Tuesday, and Brooklyn lost 125-124. On the possession before, rookie Mikel Brown Jr. had missed a layup with 2.3 seconds left that would have won it. That’s the shape of the Nets’ season so far: four games, four defeats, and two of them by a single possession.
The Nets host the Detroit Pistons at Barclays Center on Friday 30 October, tip-off at 7:30pm ET. It’s Brooklyn’s first game since the Boston loss, which means three full days off. Detroit’s schedule looks very different.
The Pistons lost 111-97 at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, host Charlotte on Wednesday and then travel to Brooklyn for their third game in four nights. They’ll do it without center Jalen Duren, who strained his right hamstring and won’t be re-evaluated for another two weeks.
We’d normally lean hard toward a team that finished last season as the East’s top seed against one still chasing a first win. Detroit went 31-9 at home last season, finished four games clear of Boston at the top of the conference and won its first playoff series since 2008.
The schedule, the Duren absence and the way Brooklyn has competed in its last two road games push us the other way on the number. We don’t expect the Nets to have an easy night, but we think the gap between these teams on Friday is smaller than their records say.
Brooklyn Nets: 114.3 points a game scored, 124.0 allowed, and close finishes on the road 
Brooklyn’s results read 103-110 against Charlotte, 121-125 in Cleveland, 109-136 against Indiana and 124-125 in overtime in Boston. Average them out and the Nets are scoring 114.3 points and allowing 124.0. The defense is the obvious weakness, and we won’t pretend otherwise.
The two home games were the worst of the four. Charlotte won by seven on opening night despite 33 points from Julius Randle, and Indiana scored 136 at Barclays Center three nights later. The road games, oddly, have been the competitive ones: a four-point loss in Cleveland and a one-point overtime defeat at TD Garden.
Randle arrived on 10 July in a four-team trade that sent Nic Claxton to Chicago, and he’s been the offense’s anchor from day one. He scored 24 in Boston, including the basket that put Brooklyn up 109-104 with 2:57 left in regulation. Michael Porter Jr. added 27 points and 12 rebounds that night after scoring 28 in Cleveland.
Brown Jr., the sixth overall pick out of Louisville, is the third piece Jordi Fernández is building around. He scored 17 at TD Garden and hit the three-pointer with 0.2 seconds left that forced overtime, before the missed layup in the final seconds of overtime.
The rest of the rotation is new. Moritz Wagner signed from Orlando on 1 July, Keon Ellis came from Cleveland on 30 June, and Day’Ron Sharpe and Josh Minott were brought back or added the same week. Neither team led by more than eight in Boston, and that’s the version of the Nets we expect to see on Friday.
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Detroit Pistons: 9 of 37 from three at the Garden, and no Duren for two weeks 
Detroit opened 3-0. It came back from 72-50 down to beat Boston 121-113 on opening night, won 128-111 in Miami and held Philadelphia to 93 points in a 106-93 road win on Sunday. Cade Cunningham had 26 points, eight rebounds and eight assists in Philadelphia.
Tuesday in New York went wrong in the third quarter. The Knicks outscored the Pistons by 24 points in that period, Detroit missed 28 of its 37 three-point attempts and shot 43% overall in the 111-97 loss. Cunningham needed 18 shots for his 19 points, with nine rebounds and eight assists.
Paul Reed was the bright spot at the Garden, with 22 points on 9-of-12 shooting and nine rebounds. He’s starting because Duren is out, and the expected first five of Cunningham, Daniss Jenkins, Duncan Robinson, John Collins and Reed has much less size and rim protection than the one that finished last season.
The defense still ranks sixth in the league in efficiency and is allowing 107 points per game, which is where J.B. Bickerstaff’s team wins most of its games. Ausar Thompson has been listed as questionable with an ankle problem and Isaiah Joe has a hip issue, so the depth behind that starting group isn’t settled either.
Detroit has beaten Charlotte five straight times, and Wednesday’s game at Little Caesars Arena comes first. Whatever happens there, the Pistons will board a flight to New York with two games in their legs this week and a third coming 48 hours after the second. We think that matters most in the fourth quarter, where Brooklyn has kept its last two games alive.
Probable lineup Brooklyn Nets: Not announced at time of publication
Probable lineup Detroit Pistons: Cade Cunningham, Daniss Jenkins, Duncan Robinson, John Collins, Paul Reed
Free NBA Prediction: Brooklyn Nets vs Detroit Pistons
Our prediction: Brooklyn Nets on the handicap (+points)
We’re taking the points with Brooklyn. The Nets have lost their last two road games by a combined five points, first in Cleveland and then against a Boston team that needed 40 points from Tatum and a buzzer-beater. They’ll be playing at home on three days’ rest.
Detroit is the better team, and its defense ranks sixth in the league. It’s also playing its third game in four nights without its starting center, after a night in New York when it made nine of 37 threes. We’d want to see that shooting recover before laying a big number on the road.
The risk to this pick is Brooklyn’s defense, which has allowed 124.0 points per game and gave up 136 to Indiana in this building. If the Pistons find their range early, the margin can grow. We still expect Randle, Porter Jr. and Brown Jr. to keep this within one or two possessions late, as they did in Cleveland and Boston.
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