The Detroit Pistons, after losing their sixth straight game, are forced to take cold showers in the Utah locker room

It’s been a bad week for the Detroit Pistons. Out of the playoffs by 11.5 games, the team became the subject of national ridicule when Los Angeles Clippers big man DeAndre Jordan destroyed Pistons guard Brandon Knight with a ferocious dunk. And while Knight should have earned karmic points for his reaction to the throwdown, he sprained his ankle during Monday’s Pistons loss to the Utah Jazz. Greg Monroe was heard calling out his Piston teammates after the blowout loss on Sunday, but ardent Piston observer Patrick Hayes noted that Monroe isn’t exactly above reproach when it comes to just going through the (productive) motions.

Then, on Monday night and after the Jazz stomped all over the Pistons, the team was greeted with a cold shower. Not in the figurative sense, via some firing or player release, but an actual cold shower from the Utah Jazz’s visiting locker room. From David Mayo at the MLive Media Group:

When you're cold, you're cold, and the Detroit Pistons, already down two starters Monday, found an additional irritant when they didn't have hot water for their post-game showers.

Oftentimes after a strenuous competition a cold shower is one of the nicer things to work your way into, deadening inflamed muscles and cooling off a body sent all sweaty after a workout. We very much doubt that this is what the Pistons, in a very unhappy place right now, are after.

As Mayo noted in his report from Monday’s game, the unwelcome drop in temperature is symptomatic of the Pistons’ season, as the Pistons have lost six straight and nine of ten overall. Few were expecting a playoff run from this rebuilding team in 2012-13, but the group has played listless at times under frustrated coach Lawrence Frank. Bright spot Andre Drummond remains out after injuring his back (though his most recent prognosis was a good one), and four players (Rodney Stuckey, Charlie Villanueva, Corey Maggette, and Kim English; pictured above) are shooting below 40 percent this year.

Stuckey in particular goes from hot to very cold in an instant – shooting 35.5 percent in March, after beginning the year on a 17-72 (23.6 percent) tear from the floor.

Things don’t figure to improve for Detroit, a team on pace for just 29 wins. The squad has to take on the Golden State Warriors and Portland Trail Blazers to finish out this particular road trip, before returning home to take on the playoff-bound Brooklyn Nets. And then, four days later, a trip to Miami to possibly work on the wrong end of what could be Miami’s 25th-straight win.

At least the water is warm on South Beach.

(UPDATE: It turns out that the Jazz didn't have hot water access either, but the Jazz are also very good and definitely not as cold as the Detroit Pistons.)