Van Gundy explains Detroit pistons' league low turnover rate

The Detroit Pistons average a league low turnover rate at 11.5 per game. So what is Stan Van Gundy’s secret?

The Detroit Pistons are efficient with the basketball this season. They lead the league in fewest turnovers and as a result teams are scoring less off their turnovers.

So what is Stan Van Gundy doing to mitigate the turnovers?

Via MLive:

“We don’t do a lot of stuff where we’re doing a lot of foreplay in sets,” Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy said. “We’re not trying to swing the ball a lot. We’re trying to move the ball via dribble-handoffs and pick and rolls.”

“We don’t give up as many of those passing-lanes steals and things like that, and our guys have just been good. I mean, generally if you keep guys on the court who are low-turnover guys, you won’t turn it over a lot.”

“I remember a number of years ago, my brother (Jeff Van Gundy) was just starting out in the league and he was doing advanced scouting,” Van Gundy said. “And when he would go into cities, he’d try to go watch a college practice. And Dick Bennett was coaching at Wisconsin-Green Bay, and his teams never turned the ball over. And so at the end of practice, Jeff asked him, ‘What do you guys do so that you don’t turn it over?’

“It’s simple — don’t play the guys who turn it over. And so I think a lot of that comes down to the players you have. And we’ve got guys who in general are low-mistake guys.”

What a revolutionary strategy–play the guys who turn the ball over less.

To Van Gundy’s point, a lot of the Pistons’ scores have come off of hand offs from Ish Smith, lops off pick-and-roles, and kick outs from players in the post–all very efficient forms of passing.

As we get deeper into the season, look for teams to force Detroit into swing passes and traps. It will also be interesting to see how the offense does handing the reins over to Jackson who has struggled with turnovers in the past.