| Game report
Gee, most of the game, the only question is would Houston make it to 70 points. TMAC saved a bit of face by going out "injured." More likely his feelings were hurt because Tay outscored him so badly. Too bad Tay's outside shot was not falling tonight or it would have really been ugly.
I see a couple shots at Arroyo tonight, and no props. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Dyess missed three wide open shots. And so did others. We got a whole lot of good shots with Arroyo in, and the defense held. The fact guys missed all these wide open shots is not Arroyo's fault. Give me a break people.
Player of the game was real easy. Ben only got credited for 2 steals, but he pried the ball away from Ming a whole lot more than that. You only get credit for the steal if you pick the ball up. Bad stat really, as credit should be shared by the guy who slaps the ball away. Ben was great tonight knocking that ball away from Ming or blocking his shots. Or playing right under his feet so he got bad shots off. And Ben pulled down about 17 rebounds, had 4 blocks. Just 5 points, but one of those baskets was at the 5 minute mark when we needed it. Oh, and he drew fouls on Ming by scoring on him, and by taking offensive fouls. That last one, you could press assault charges for, let alone just calling it a charging foul. Ming hooked Ben at the neck with a serious elbow.
Evans got a couple of offensive rebound put backs and got 8 points for us and got bench player of the game. Dyess got worst bench player of the game, although he did finally manage to hit one shot there in the 2nd half. Darko played good D, got a couple of blocks. Did a lot of showing. Very active. Only played in the first half. He misssed 3 shots I think. Good to see him shoot them though. Only in game practice shooting really makes that shot better at this point. The shot looks good, it will start going down. Indeed, if any shots had gone down for the 2nd unit in the 2nd quarter, they could have stayed out there the whole quarter. Maybe next time.
CB hit some shots, made some plays, but had 5 fouls limiting his time out there. Rip continues as usual to be our most consistent scorer. And our 5th starter, Sheed, simply played good D and won the game for us with his post play down the stretch, scoring on Swift so easily you got to term it player abuse. Oh, and if a guard has a center guarding him, that guard you would think could drive the big guy. Wesley tried it on Sheed and Sheed blocked his shot. Great job Sheed.
With Ben taking Ming out of the equation pretty much, and Tay making life as miserable for TMAC as his aching back, Wesley was left as the only scoring threat Houston had left. Of course, we covered that up soon enough and did not let Wesley hurt us in crunch time.
8-0. First time since 89. If we win tomorro, thats 9-0, matching our best ever start.
The refs refused to call offensive fouls on Ming early, so Ben got smart and gave Ming a bit more rope to hang himself with. Ben simply backed off a bit, making the offensive fouls more obvious. By the time Ming fouled out, he was seriously confused puppy.
Houston tried hack a Ben. Stupid. Ben made one, which means instead of playing good D, they gave us a point, a point we really needed and one they could not really afford to give up at the moment with just over 2 minutes to go in a still tight game.
Ben got kicked in the leg during that last offensive foul / mugging by Ming and missed the last minute or two of the game. Hope he is ok.
Five and counting. Five times Darko has gotten real minutes in a game now this season, and still it has not cost us a loss. Dallas tomorro night, and I expect it will be 6 games. And 9-0 for the Pistons. GO PISTONS!!!!! |