| game report
First of all, unless you believe in fairy tales very strongly, you can forget Flip ever playing his bench more. Just not in him to do it, ever. Tonight, he shortened it up to 8 guys. Arroyo, Evans, and Dyess were the only subs. Only Dyess played major minutes of the three. Arroyo got stints in both halves, as did Evans. Our bench played well, absolutely no doubt, especially Dyess. Dyess guarded Brand well, who was killing us otherwise, and Dyess made a bunch of shots. Dyess was aggressive in the post too, something us Piston fans just love to see.
Our worst stretches were all by our starters. Bad start to each half. Other than that though, the Pistons did pretty darn well. Most of those bad starts were Brand hitting a bunch of shots.
Our offense stayed pretty strong, with five good contributors. Tay was again hitting his outside shots, going inside too, plus he scored 13 of them in the 4th quarter. Tay getting clutch points is a very welcome sight. Another guy who was clutch was Sheed, who nailed a couple of triples to put them away.
We had a 12 point lead with just under 5 minutes to go. They employed hack-a-Ben. And it was working. They cut our lead to 6 in short order. Ben hit his first one, but then missed 5 straight, many not anywhere near the gym. Flip made a good move, and put Dyess in. Note, Dyess got an offensive rebound putback for us there, which is the only reason Ben would need to be in, rebounding. Just after Dyess came in, Sheed hit that triple. Like he was sticking up for Ben. GO SHEED!!!!!
I'd say this was the most important Dyess has ever been to us for a game this season. At least that I can recall. His defense was every bit as needed as his offense tonight, and he gave us lots of both.
Combined with Tay's 29 point effort last game, his 22 points tonight mean Tay is back. Actually, he has been rather quietly working on his offensive game all season long. We are just now seeing some results. What many felt was poor shooting by Tay earlier, no, it was not. That was Tay working on his game. Draw them out with his outside shot, then burn them going inside. Working great now.
Rip was his old steady self. And gee, somebody had a theory that Rip did not like Arroyo. Well, Rip was sure nailing shots fine off passes from Arroyo tonight. Guess they must have made up.
About the worst thing Arroyo did tonight was pass to McDyess when Dyess was not looking for the pass. If I were Dyess, sitting under the basket like that, I would certainly expect Arroyo to be able to get me the ball. Laim says Arroyo should have layed it up. Well, Arroyo had been blocked a time or two. Maybe he was a bit gun shy. Pretty natural. Other than that, Arroyo brought the ball up, we kept scoring, and Arroyo played fine D at the other end. Even that pass was not a turnover, as it went out off LA.
Evans hit a triple, made all four of his free throws. Good job their. His steal was off a knock-a-way by a teammate. He got some bounds, and he knocked one rebound to a teammate. On defense, if someone beat him, he fouled them. Not bad at all for Evans tonight.
Ben made a bucket over Brand on a post up move. Been a while since we seen Ben be successful in the post. Ben had some blocks, tried his best to guard Brand. A lot of times his best guarding Brand was not good enough. Brand was hitting shots hand in his face or no. With pretty good range. Good thing he did not seem all that capable of putting down on the floor too.
Kamen did nto have too good a night against us. Missed the majority of his shots. Something to do with Rasheed's length I guess.
Sheed did some scoring in the post. But not like Dyess. Dyess was just abusing people. Dyess is really getting his ups back. Which is why he was shooting over people and bothering Brand so much.
In sum, ain't much changing with the Pistons. No Hunter, Davis, Darko. And absolutely no hint in this game a guy like Hunter was needed. They did not have a guard burning us tonight. It was Brand. Hunter is the wrong guy for that. Who knows, if Dyess could not contain Brand so well, maybe we would have seen Davis get some time. About all I can think of for now. GO PISTONS!!!!! |