Yeah, not a lot of fun for long stretches. The fans were quiet. The end of the game where Atlanta was fouling for three straight minutes took forever. Well, actually, Atlanta gave up with about a minute and a half to go and we ran out a whole lot of the clock on a possession where we got an offensive rebound. Thank goodness or this one could still be going on.


Still, there were two periods of the game that were fun to watch. One, as our bench held Atlanta scoreless the first half of the 2nd quarter. Hunter had spelled Billups early, and Billups was back in 30 seconds into the quarter. A unit of Billups, Afflalo, Hayes, JMAX, and Dyess / Sheed did wonders. JMAX was providing the scoring punch, and all of them were hustling big time on D.


And then late 3rd quarter, Hunter comes in, along with Maxiell. Our starters, who showed no energy at all in the first quarter, were showing even less in the 3rd quarter. A 14 point lead had dwindled to 3. But Hunter and Maxiell between them injected some life into the Pistons and we pumped that lead back up.


Really good news. Afflalo came in for a good 5 minute stretch early 4th quarter. And of course, the team did well with him in. Afflalo plays real solid D, always managing to get a hand up in the face of the guy with the ball.


Lets go over that again: Our bench won this one. Murray did not play, and of course Mohammed was traded before the game, so we had a pretty decent rotation of players out there. Sure, Billups played too much - but those last 3 minutes were just walking the ball back and forth from free throw line to free throw line for the most part. Not too taxing.


For much of the game Rip was our best offense. Meanwhile, Atlanta was struggling badly to find anyone to score. Joe Johnson was held in check very well in the first half, and they had to resort to preposterous attempts at scoring like Pachulia trying to go one on one against Sheed. Yeah, like that would ever work. Or Anthony Johnson, an otherwise solid player, trying to shake his man and shoot off the dribble. Hey, we will give them that all night - and they won't get any points off it. Joe Johnson got a lot more aggressive in the 2nd half and did some damage, but that was it for Atlanta. With Horford out with the suspension, this was a much easier game vs. the last one against them.

With that said, as inept as Atlanta was, our tired dragging starters could not do a thing against them.


Tay had a good scoring night, and he even hit a long range shot for the first time in a long time - after he had connected on several closer in shots to get a rythm going. And he pulled down 10 bounds.

Dyess pulled down 14 bounds and had three blocks. As Atlanta goes with a very small lineup, Dyess looked awful big out there.

Sheed was invisible in this one.

Hayes hit on a post up, and hit an open outside shot. He looked around a bit, and surprisingly Atlanta just was not interested in coming out and guarding him. Swish.
Afflalo hit one of about 3 outside shots he took.

Hunter drove in after a pump fake to score. A 2nd such attempt resulted in a blown layup. Good D, and since his minutes were very limited as usual, he always brought the ball up smartly. (I hate it when Hunter gets overplayed and begins to walk the ball up. But that has not happened this year yet.) One nice drive and dish to his credit.


Billups hit some shots from the outside, and some closer in posting up his guy. And a bunch of shots at the line at the end of the game.


Amir Johnson did not play. But at least Afflalo did play, with some very meaningful, and as always, very productive minutes. I still want badly to see Amir play more. The move he did at the end of this one was pretty awesome, weaving thru traffic and hitting his shot. Similar to what he did the last time we let him shoot. Amir is very talented. If Saunders lets him play, I guarantee people will start showing up at the Palace again. He is worth the ticket - if he ever gets to play.
GO PISTONS!!!!!