Evans putback was indeed in my report.

I write a ton about the starters too. Nobody makes much comment about that. They just concentrate on what they don't like. How much of a story is it that Sheed is going into the post a lot more this year, or that he is doing great on his threes? That story I have told over and over in my reports. Or that Tay continues to work on and stay aggressive on his offense. He continues to try to establish his outside shot, making them come out to guard him so he can blow by them to the basket. How much of a story is Ben Wallace pulling down 20 rebounds. Nothing new. Or blocking Paul 4 times in the N.O. game? Old. Rip coming off screens? He does it game after game. Rip going inside more. Rip hitting triples well. CB hitting triples well. CB going to the line all day in so many games. You can only tell the same story so many times.

You say the bench is not a story? With our "bench" in, to start the 4th quarter, we went 1-10. Rip hit a shot to begin the quarter, and then we not only did not get a bucket the next 5 minutes, we did not even score a point. Don't you think that is a story? Don't you think people would want to know how that happened? After all, we only had 2 bench players in the game. CB was still running the point. Either Rip or Tay were in the game. Either Ben or Sheed was in. So how come we stalled? That is a story.

And now, contrast that opening of the 4th to the opening of the 2nd quarter. No Carlos Arroyo. CB sitting on the bench getting some rest. Quite a story. Did we falter. Crash and burn. Nope. We ran the lead from 13 points up to 20 points. How did that happen? Here, again, we had 3 starters and 2 bench players. Who ran the offense in the absence of Arroyo? This is a story, pertinent to this game.

By the way, Prince brought the ball up for us, but Delfino was also quite involved in our ball handling in those opening minutes of the 2nd quarter. Tay passed the ball for instance, and Delfino drove toward the top of the lane, drawing 2 defenders, kicked out to Dyess for an assist. And a couple more times Delfino handling the ball led to us scoring.

To open the 4th quarter, in contrast, it was Evans getting a few shots at handling the ball. Each time, he simply lost some time on the clock and passed the ball off, not giving us a thing for the time the ball was in his hands.

We are talking about quite a hunk of the game time. Stuff not hardly ordinary, run of the mill stuff about the Pistons. Stuff that is different. New.

And what happened after Delfino sat for Evans? SA scored every time down, and the last two times it was on Evans. Evans came out of the game and we righted the ship, so to speak. You call it riding Evans. I call it reporting to people who might want to know what happened in the game.

Specifically, Nick the Quick shook Evans off real easy and hit a jumper. Next time down, he shook off Evans easily and got right in the paint. Sheed had to challenge him, leaving Duncan open for a dunk. That is what happened right before his coach took Evans out of the game.

We did have two periods in the game where we scored, and gained some lead, with Evans in. In both the 1st and 3rd quarters, Evans was in while we pushed the lead up. None of this was really Evans though. He did get the one offensive rebound putback, and thats it really. His other rebounds did not lead to us scoring. Other players on the team did some good stuff on offense, like nail threes, hit their teammates for good assists. With Evans out of the way. On defense, Evans was ineffective on anyone he gaurded.

If you disagree with what I am writing, you tell me just where. Can you tell me the player Evans guarded well. Can you point out where Evans made a good pass that led to scoring for us? Any positives you want to add about Evans, go ahead. I am listening. I plan to watch the game a couple of more times yet and I will be sure to look for whatever you mention.