Raj Mehta-US PRESSWIRE

The Detroit Pistons have to stop playing like a young NBA team, even though they are one.

But the oldest player on the team at age 32, Tayshaun Prince, points out after watching his squad in four games, that you can only use the “being too young excuse” for so long.  Eventually, to win a game, a team has to forget about how young it may or may not be.

It’s what Prince had to go through last season with this team and the Pistons struggled to 25-41. Prince is tired of not making the playoffs.

“The key was to sustain our intensity at both ends for the whole game, especially against a good veteran team and us being so young it’s important when they go on a run to reestablish ourselves and try to make one ourselves,” he said.

What rookies like Kyle Singler and Andre Drummond need to master, as soon as possible, is effectively reading an NBA defense. It’s something new Pistons players have struggled with for a long time.

“It comes with feeling each other out,” Prince said. “We’ve got a young team. When you had a veteran team it was easier to make those reads without having to say anything. But now it’s a major communication thing and we know what we have to do, we have to get better and better.”

Older teams do a lot of talking on the defensive end, Prince points out. “Hopefully we can understand that just by talking, a lot more guys can make things easier and guys can react a lot quicker.”