Salt Lake City — If the Pistons’ season hasn’t been decided already, the six-game western trip could be the tilt that moves it either toward a definitive finish or toward potentially salvaging the final playoff spot in the East.
At 30-36, the Pistons are holding on to the last shreds of being able to make anything of this season. They’re five games behind the Milwaukee Bucks for eighth place and the upcoming slate isn’t favorable: white-hot Utah on Tuesday, Denver on Thursday and Portland, the current No. 3 seed in the West, on Sunday.
While the Pistons got an initial boost after the Blake Griffin trade, they’ve fallen off since, giving rise to the notion that they’ve given up on the season and already are thinking about next year.