| game report
Wow. CB got 19 assists and 28 points. Rip 38 points. Rip came into the game at 51% shooting and did nothing at all to cool that stat off. And Ben got 17 boards despite suffering a badly strained thumb early in the game.
Dyess hit some more outside shots. He seems to like to first post up, against a defender, hit a shot, and then go a bit further out. Apparently, we have been getting him too wide open. Go figure.
Tay got some outside shots to fall, hardly noticeable amidst the fireworks by Rip and CB.
Shee did not seem to anything all that special either. Again, compared to all those firworks. But Sheed hit a bunch of triples tonight. What a starting lineup.
A certain announcer for us seems to have an agenda. Basically picking on Arroyo. Not fair. He missed the fact that against that zone, we did get several wide open shots. Just got missed. Now, if he wanted to pick on Arroyo's defense, that would be fair tonight, because Arroyo did do poorly on defense.
Evans had a good game in the 2nd half, but in the first half, he was out there with the subs while they could not score, partly because Evans himself missed a few shots, including a layup. And of course, Dyess was getting too wide open. Evans was not hitting his shots outside tonight but did do good defensively and on the boards.
Even though the bench did poorly tonight, its still good to see Flip go to it. We played 4 bench players with Ben out there. Hopefully, Flip will keep that up. By the way though, we still have never lost a game because of Darko playing in the 2nd quarter. Flip should go back to that too. Play the whole 2nd unit, as a five man unit. Let them get some chemistry together.
Carlos Delfino was the last bench player in in the 2nd quarter. And he got the ball to the basket twice. Nobody else was doing that. But out came Delfino with all the rest of the bench players. Overkill. Leave some of those bench players out there. Heck, put CB back in to kill the zone, but keep Dyess, Evans, and Delfino out there. We are in the midst of a killer stretch of games. Keep the bench out there. We should be ok for the moment, with a day off, at home, for the next game. No trip to make.
CB was knocking down triples. But they could not play up on him or he would drive in on them. Rip was just hitting one midranger after another. I bet of those 19 assists, at least 11 or 12 had to be to Rip hitting a mid-ranger. Talk about going to what is working.
Arroyo took one shot, a bit out of his range. Still good to see him working on extending his range though. He needs to shoot more long ones. In Utah when he was the starter for the year, Arroyo shot a respectable 33% from beyond the arc. That would help us in these type of games where the other team goes zone.
Back to Sheed. His 3 point shooting has been purely incredible this season. And he has in many games posted up the other team to death. And when Sheed gets a midrange shot to take, that goes down too. Full package. He even has been adding of late a move across the lane to go with those constant face up jumpers from the post.
Darko got 2 blocks in 2 minutes. Not bad.
Maxiell played a bit, nothing to mention. He missed a shot or two. The announcer mentioned that Maxiell has been really doing well in practice. Notice, this game was not quite a lock when Flip put the bench in with 2 minutes to go. He could have went conservative, and let CB go for his 20th assist. Just maybe the bench got in a bit there just to give Maxiell some floor time. Still have not seen Maxiell in the 2nd quarter. And since they played Corliss so much, man would I have liked to seen Maxiell guard Corliss. Who knows. Sacramento is not that bad a team. Yeah, next year. Hey, we are 16-3. Best record in the league. GO PISTONS!!!!! |