Live Thread: Cavs vs. Pistons (#GlassMonster)

The Detroit Pistons are a pretty scary rebounding team, featuring one of the best on the glass… Andre Drummond. This season, Drummond leads the league by a comfortable margin with 15.3 per contest, and has averaged 16.0 in three previous clashes against the Cavs, even though he didn’t even have to play the fourth quarter of two of those games.

Drummond and the Pistons would be hard to stop even if the Cavs had a healthy front line… which they don’t currently. News came this afternoon that Kevin Love would miss tonight’s game with lower back soreness following a bad fall late in the second quarter against Dallas on Saturday. Without him, or the also injured Larry Nance, Jr. and Tristan Thompson, it will fall to the likes of Ante Zizic and Marquese Chriss to keep the Piston glass monster at bay. Call me a pessimist, but this seems unlikely to happen.

On the positive side, Drummond’s usual monster partner on the boards, Blake Griffin, will be held out of this one due to rest for the stretch run. Detroit is coming off an emotional season sweep of the Toronto Raptors yesterday, so maybe the Cavs can catch them napping. The other good news is that Collin Sexton and Cedi Osman have stayed red hot from the perimeter lately, combining to hit 10-14 attempts from deep on Saturday. The Cavs will have to lean heavily on their two youngsters to have much of a shot tonight.

Prediction: The Cavs probably get smashed by the Pistons front line early, but might just have enough shooting to take advantage of Detroit’s weary legs for a late comeback… but still fall 112-107.

Catch all the action starting at 7pm EST on FSO, and as always chime in below…