First the score.... Toronto 89-Pistons 82 Second the meaningless stats
A stat fact that scrolled earlier today on ESPNews>> Pistons are 1-7 in games that they fail to score at least 83 points. How about 1-8 now.....
Pistons lost for the sixth straight Wednesday as once again they couldn't get over the hump. In those last four Wednesday game losses the Pistons scored 78 pts vs the Celtics, 82 vs the Sixers, 73 last Wednesday vs the Cavs and 82 vs the Raptors tonight.
WTF do they do on Tuesday nights that prevent them from showing up on wednesdays??
We have two more Wednesday games left this season AT the sixers on 4/9 and AT the Cavs on 4/16...
Now the game
Story of tonight's game
Brick city in the first half for both teams. Raptors woke up and scored in the paint at will in the third qtr...while the Pistons continued with Jump city. About the time the Pistons decided to wake up they were down 17. They put together a run with Stuckey, Billups and Sheed to get back in it, but went to the three ball to many times down the stretch. I think they were down five 82-77 with 2 mins left and came down with 2 or 3 straight 3 ball attempts when a duce is all they needed. Billups got 16 FTA Monday...he could tried the same method of scoring tonight down the stretch and tied this one instead of going for the long gun...Great defense by Amir down the stretch on Bosh after Dice got abused in the 3rd qtr. No matter if Rip was missing or not, this was a winnable game by the Pistons, but it appeared that they took game off just like Rip
Notes
Pistons have split the last 8 games .... 4 wins vs the western playoff contenders (Spurs, Hornets, Nuggets, and Suns) and 4 losses vs the eastern playoff contenders, (Sixers, Cavs, Wizards and Raptors). Which means that we can beat those western teams if we can get to the finals, but we got to figure out how to get by the so called weaker east first?? Then again, maybe we are not showing our hand since three of those teams are potential first round matchups...
