Afflalo did not play. And we barely won. Six games so far. In the 3 games that Afflalo was in the rotation significantly, we won easily. In the other three, we lost one, and just barely squeaked by in the other two. Afflalo will not lose games for us. He is a good solid player.


Yes, Amir did get to play, but Mr. Sneaky, us fans did not fail to notice that you left Afflalo out of the game. Get it right, play both. And that goes for all three when Stuckey gets back. Further, like someone mentioned in an earlier post, just what the heck is this not playing Maxiell more in the first half. The starters need that kind of energy in the game. (Like the energy he was providing much of the 4th quarter, getting multiple offensive rebounds.) Can't an NBA coach understand why the starters would do so bad in a third quarter - they were tired.


Enough ranting, for now. We won and are 5-1 in this young season. A future star of our team got to play, in the first half when the game still counted, and heck, we won. Still no evidence that playing young guys loses games. Amir scored a few points, making one of two free throws and getting an offensive rebound putback. The foul that sent him to the line was a shove as he was trying to secure another offensive rebound. About half his time was as a small forward, with the starters on the floor otherwise. (Tay was the only starter sitting. But Tay did come in for the last minute, making Amir a power forward. And the first minute he was paired up with Hayes. For that minute, you could argue that either was the small vs. power forward.)


Mohammed got to play a good stretch of the 2nd quarter, and had one decent play. Flip Murray got significant minutes both halves, did not do much except a few times he got to the basket, resulting in 2-3 at the line and one bucket. Considering nobody else seemed to want to go to the basket at the time this was very helpful.


Dyess had a good game. 15 and 15. A lot of his points were around the basket, exactly where he should be playing. His points chiefly came on end of plays where he ended up with the ball at the basket, or on offensive rebound putbacks. Not really any posting up from him and just a couple of outside shots made.


JMAX barely played in the 1st half. Tricky is using his old trick of pulling someone who has a 2nd foul, for the remainder of the half. He has done this to JMAX two straight games now. Which means he has only gotten to play after sitting most of a half and half time, plus most of the 3rd quarter. Probably a blatant attempt to ice the guy.


Hayes was a scoring hero, getting 14 in 18 minutes. And a lot of that was around the basket. He did bury a couple of outside jumpers, but scored on cuts to the basket and from posting up. That I like.


Now, for the bench as a whole. Sorry, not so good. None of the bench guys did that poorly as individuals, but collectively, there is just too little defense being played when Dyess remains out their with the likes of Hayes, Murray, and Mohammed. No footspeed for three of them, and no ability for the fourth.


Tay took too many outside shots, and missed way too many. However, even though I do not like this much, in game practice always helps. Watch him hit a bunch of shots next game. Prince was playing backup point again. Meanwhile, we won this game anyway so all that outside shooting did not hurt us. Billups set the tone early with outside shooting. Very little driving inside. Sheed hit a couple of threes, and spent almost no time around the basket for the game, though he did provide a huge hoop in the last minute working at the basket. One of his simple face up jumpers that goes way over the crowd. It just seemed like things were going too easy at first, and the Pistons decided they did not need to bring their A game. (Which is getting the ball inside.)


Got to harp on the substitution patterns a bit. Detroit was running and gunning some with Seattle, and slaughtering Seattle while doing so. But Flip should have recognized that he needed to sub early to keep that kind of effort up. Instead, we got the same old same old, leaving all the starters in most of the 1st quarter. (Seattle had two early subs, and kept their energy up.)


Rip was the big scoring star, hitting 3 triples and lots of midrangers. And one of them put us up for with little time left in the game. Love that clutch shooting. But he played over 40 minutes. He did not come off the floor for any rest until well into the 2nd quarter. (It amazed me that Flip at least did not bring Rip (nor Billups) back until 5 minutes left in this close game. At least he realized just how tired these guys were.) All of our starters played heavy minutes, even Dyess who supposedly is not suppose to getting so many minutes just because he is starting. Get a clue Flip. Dyess has not played heavy minutes in years, do you really want him pushing his luck like that?


Look, we are 5-1, and considering the competition we are about to face, or I should say, lack of competition, we are probably going to be 9-1 at the end of this long west trip. Would playing more young guys lose games? Maybe. I doubt it. But not playing them is a loser route for sure, for our starters will be burnt out, injured, at playoff time. The time to stop the non-sense is the very next game. Play Afflalo, JMAX, and Amir significant minutes, all in the same game, and no, garbage time does not count.


GO PISTONS!!!!!
Prince was playing backup point again.