Lawrence Frank is giving the Pistons freedom to improvise on offense after defensive stops.

“We give the ultimate gold ticket to players,” Frank said. “If we get stops, we just play out of basketball principles. We don’t run set plays off of misses. So if I’m a player and I want freedom, I’m going to get stops.”

Frank has encouraged Brandon Knight – a player Pistons scouts felt was the fastest from end to end with the ball in his hands in college basketball last season – to play at a faster pace.

“The last couple of years, and even the championship years, this was one of the slower-paced teams in the league,” Frank said. “It’s not ‘six seconds or less,’ but we have to attack before the defense is set. You see all the advantages to it. Not only do you get open shot opportunities, but you have so many mismatches. You have big against small, small against big, which may indirectly lead to penetration, may lead to offensive rebounding. There are so many benefits to it, but it all starts with getting stops.

“You get the rebound, you outlet the ball as far up the floor as possible. The first thing you’re going to look to do is, anyone ahead of the ball, you’re going to advance it. If not, we call ’em rack attacks. So you’ve got to attack the rack. We’ve got two guys who are great speed dribblers in Brandon Knight and Rodney Stuckey. We fully encourage it and want them to get into the paint and create and that’s a big part of their game. It has to be an attack mentality.”