In addition to these 17 points, which is really a lot for him these days even though by this point in his career he should be dropping 20-burgers regularly and would be if not for incompetent coaches who don’t know how to use him, Luke Kennard added value in other ways as well. This will sound unbelievable, but the Pistons commentator who isn’t Blaha claimed it and I have no reason to doubt him since he watched the whole game and I didn’t: Kennard had an excellent game defensively.
I know, right?
Now, most likely we were fooled by his steals that led to buckets. Those are good defensive plays, for sure, but having a defensive performance that could be termed “excellent” usually involves locking down a scorer or playing really tight defense in a team concept. Not like I know what I’m talking about; my distaste for defense is well known. But I somehow doubt that Kennard was shutting down Josh Richardson or anything. Maybe he was, though. Or maybe he was shutting down Dwyane Wade. Now that is something I could believe.
If he indeed is improved on the defensive end, then there is no reason that he shouldn’t be seeing major minutes and touches every game, right? Right.