Quote:
Originally Posted by TaShawn  Did Utah present any match-up difficulties that were out of the ordinary? To me, it seems like the only unusual match ups were that they have a 7' three point shooter who would be a bench player for us, a young energy player in Milsap who would be a DNP for us, and a pretty good point guard. Nothing to freak out about. |
Now, I've not been this pissed off during a regular season loss since the Bulls game earlier this year, and this is pushing Game 5 of the 2005 finals mad.
But I understood why they didn't play AJ. Utah's system, and how we chose 2 defend it, are horrible for that inexperienced of a big, how much switching and back cutting and hiding on the baseline was going on?
Now what I would have done was put AJ out there with 4 of the starters for a few mins at a time and just run straight man to man, leave him on Memo and tell him to NEVER leave him, I don't care if somebody else is getting a layup...
How is not guarding Memo at the 3 point line ever the right move? I don't get it. It's beyond automatic. Never ever leave him, EVER.
You guys may laugh but the game was lost on 2 missed free throws in the 3rd Q by Sheed. we were up 15 effing points and sheed stepped to the line and had a chance to put us up 17 and completely stem the tide... Instead he misses a pair, D Williams scores a bunny and the anti-run is on.
That was a playoff preview guys, sad to say it, but it was, we went back to 'exploiting mismatches' and C$ getting baited into weak charges, giving up HUGE runs and having long periods of looking helpless on defense.
This should have been an ultra cakewalk, but we closed EVERY QUARTER like crap. It was something like 31 to 16 with about a min left in the first, it ends up being 31 to 21, Utah closes the half strong to get it down to 11 from 18, Utah OWNS US to end the 3rd, We have a slim lead with about 4:00 to go in the 4th... Utah scores on 5 of 6 possesions, we lose by 6+.
This is all to a team that probably won't even sniff the WCF and a team that lost to effing Minnesota the night before and then traveled home.
yeah the officiating sucked, but it's always going to suck for a team without a trancendent star.
This team continues to suck vs the High Screen and roll, and since moving screens no longer exist on the screens on the ballhandler, that is what you'll see 85% of the time in the playoffs and... We'll continue to suck against it.
Yep, I'm melting down, and rightfully so. This was a litmus test. FAIL, we are supposed to break teams with our execution down the stretch and tag shooters... The opposite happened.
Sheed is probably my favorite Piston, but he lost this game, flat out.
1. the 2 huge missed FT's.
2. Not covering Memo, any part of the time. MAKE HIM DRIBBLE
3. Jacking up a ton of threes and missing ALL of them.