here's what i saw:

Offense:
chauncey did dribble too much, but I don't think he shot too much (11-17) and in the long run, especially, I was glad to see him break out; also glad to see his turnovers cut down to 1 again.

rip: didn't shoot well in the second half, but did a good job of taking the ball to the basket (though he could've finished more consistently). needs to do a better job of breaking them down from teh wing when they front the post (i.e. beating his man to create a 2 on 1 with his post player)

sheed: great second half, useless in the first. sorry that they went away from him after his little hot streak at the beginning of the second half; but if his man is gonna front, i don't thinkn he needs to push thte dude all the way out to where our perimeter players are standing. but the passing into him was weak as hell tonight.

ben: useless tonight on offense, didn't even board well

tay: useless tonight on offense, no aggressiveness at all -- like he wasn't even on the floor (1-7 shooting, 2 boards)

dyess: not quite useless, but he still looks intimidated when he gets the ball in the post, attempted to pass out several times when he was 1 on 1. didn't board (4 def. boards in 22 mins. unacceptable from him). I know he had 9 points, but he could've and should've had more -- and his mistakes perhaps were magnified by when they occurred and by the fact that he was about the only guy who was even getting the ball near the basket. *reserve the right to change my mind about his offensive game*

Lindsey, delk, delfino: whatever.

DEFENSE
non-existent except for a four minute 20 second stretch to bbegin the fourth quarter. I will give wade credit: i think he hit some tough shots. but overall, their high shooting percentage was due to the huge number of layups and dunks (or shaq bunnies) that they got.

REBOUNDING:
entire team except sheed gets an F, and even sheed gets a D on the offensive end. too many one shot and outs for us. we missed 37 shots and got only 8 of those rebounds. they missed 28 shots and got 11 of those rebounds. unacceptable.

I have to say i agree that when shaq is out (especially in the hack-a-ben period of the game) ben needs to be pulled immediately. period.

OVERALL
However, I remain optimistic (if not quite confident). Bottom line is that the 2nd quarter is where they blew it open (23-14): apart from that we lost the first quarter by 2, the 3rd quarter by 1, and actually were winning the 4th quarter until that final parade of free throws by them (wanna check the full play-by-play and game flow to confirm that impression of the fourth).

Iin other words, though we were outshot by 15 % from the floor, outrebounded by 13, and had 16 to's to 11 assists, i felt like we were in this game (and in fact, of course, we had it at 74-73 when dyess muffed the dunk -- maybe he was fouled -- and dwade came back and made a 3 point play).

this didn't feel like game 1 or game 2 to me (even though i know some will see a similar rhythm); at least definitely not game 2 cause they were never up more than 12 til the very last minute, and we got it down to 1 with a fair bit of game left (whereas in game 2 we were up 18 and they only closed the gap at the very end).

i don't know about the rest of you, but when we came down with the ball, down 1, i felt pretty good about our chances of stealing a game in which we got outplayed. as it turns out, we didn't get steal this one.

this time chauncey showed up, rip was more or less rip, and sheed showed what he can do when we get him the ball, and then tay disappeared. it's frustrating that the five starters haven't been able to show consistently, but i believe we're still gonna see 'em show up for one of these games: four guys in double figures (with rip and someone else over 20), ben around 15 boards, and another 15 or so from dice and co. off the pine. I know Miami is a good team -- I'm not underestimating them. but i think they are playing at the top of their game right now and we definitely aren't.

but my money's still on us for game 4 (and, for that matter for game 5).

Way to many blown opportunities that took away momentum defensively and offensively.How many bunnies did we miss?Overpassing out of the paint instead of going up for the dunk.Make Shaq foul you, heck there were quite a few where he wouldn't have made it he was out of position.Fumble the pass or just plain old hearing footsteps.

Oh well typical game 3 still need to come out 2-2.Chancey had a good shooting night they adjusted and really held Prince up.Better distribution and getting others involved will help.Need better decisions.

of course those speculations were wishful, of course they aren't capable of a sweep, and of course miami won't go away.

but did anybody really expect they would get four sweeps? (i'll admit i predicted a sweep of miami before the playoffs started, but it was mostly just for show).

this team, good as they have been throughout the past few years haven't swept one single playoff series. Hell, if i remember right, they've only won two series 4-1 and they were first rounders. In fact, I think they have fallen behind in every single series over the past few years (except the finals against LA).

everything is a struggle in the playoffs for this squad. that is simply reality. has been, is now, and will continue to be. if anybody's feeling that their expectations of playoff ease have been disappointed, all i can say is that those expectations were delusional and they deserve their disappointment. all this team has ever promised (as far as what their play indicates we can expect of them at playoff time) is that they will underachieve until their *sses are on the grill. so what is there to be disappointed about? that this didn't change? for god's sake: they more or less say it explicitly: if it ain't rough, it ain't right. it's their identity, period. get used to it.

after these losses, i'm just looking to see if there's any sign that they won't be able to pull their nuts out of the fire later in the series. so far in this one, i don't see any of those signs.

dissappointing game. too much dribbling and not enough efficiency on our post passes. Flip was clearly outcoached by Pat during the 4th quarter (when Flip didn't take Ben out and they started hacking him). I don't know why flip didn't take him out when pat took shaq out.

Dice is straight scared out there. Sorry to say it, but its true. The dunk he missed would have given us the momentum to win the game. He wasn't even fouled! That was seriously a cruicial play. It would have gotten the heat on their heels. Overall...not good. Tay had a bad game, but he was due for one sooner or later, so he gets a pass IMO.

Thats basically what happened. I said it an earlier post we'd be in trouble if Antione outplayed Tay. Don't be surprised at all if the Pistons are down 7-0 in Game 4. Yet again we're in another must win game and we have to weather the storm. The Pistons just cam't win unless they're the underdog and it pisses me off.

After watching this game and thinking about Micro's comments about McDyess (how horrible he's been lately) in the chat room tonight, leaves me with three thoughts.

...Looking back, maybe it really was a mistake trading Arroyo (his defensive deficiencies aside). He and McDyess had developed such great chemistry running that pick and roll, especially against Miami. How valuable of a weapon would that be coming off our bench right now as opposed to what we have as an alternative?

...It's just a hunch or maybe more of a prediction. But my gut tells me that Joe D. is not going to re-sign Ben Wallace next year. Maybe there's a sign-and-trade in the future. Who knows? But, something tells me that Ben Wallace will not be on this team next year.

...How long is it going to take until Flip Saunders gets it through his head to take Ben Wallace out of the game at the end when he sees Pat Riley going to the Hack-a-Ben? I mean, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out. It really is becoming painfully obvious that this head coach is completely incapable of making adjustments. Even the simplest ones as removing a player from the most obvious situations.

I have to agree with you on Flip. How stupid do you have to be to hack Shack and then leave Ben in for the obvious retaliation. Maybe this summer Ben can get Shack to give him some free throw pointers.

Yeah CB got his got his shot back (11-17FG and 4-5 from beyond the arc,) but 3 assists??. You are not going to get that many assists passing to Ben. Assist to TO ratio was in the negative as the team was 11/16, which will not win that many games, but the heat did win with 11/18??? Of course their 57.6% shooting and their 50-16 dominance in the paint will beat most teams. We scored no points in the paint after that missed dunked attempt by Dice with a little less that 8 mins in the game and the score 74-73 Heat.

The key to this loss has to be the disappearance of Tay who most would agree won game 2 for the Pistons and games 6 and 7 in the Cavs series. 1-7 shooting, (the first 3 ball of the of the game) and only 2 boards. Although Sheed was having a horrible game in the first half, he still contributed 11 pts and 10 boards. Compared to Ben's 2 pts and 6 boards. (2-10 FT shooting is a bad stat that will eventually catch up with us).

Once again Rip disappeared in the second half scoring only 4 points and Wade stepped up in the second half scoring almost 20 (35 total on a ridiculous 13/17 shooting.) The Heat beat us on at least 4-5 alley oops as Ben, Dice and Sheed were caught flat footed a number of times including being outboarded by 13. Walker's, post game comment indicated that they think they can get that alley opp all night and they will exploit it.

Listening to Mad Dog Carter on NBA TV, he suggests the Pistons adjust to a zone, and see if that can reduce those Heat points in the paint. Anything may help

Actually professor, the Finals win was also 4-1.

Anyway, their identity used to be Goin' to Work. This whole If it ain't rough, it ain't right stuff seems like nothing so much as an excuse to keep other teams in the series longer than is necessary.

I haven't seen any of the three Miami games and you have, but I have my doubts about this series. Against Cleveland, down 3-2, I was convinced the Pistons would pull out the victory in 7. But against the Heat, before this series even started, I didn't feel good about it. The Cavs are totally inexperienced, and not really that good a team besides. The Heat are completely different -- highly motivated, experienced, well-coached, with lots of weapons.

If the Pistons insist on giving more ground than is necessary to a team like this, they are going to lose.

Those calls by the refs when we were down by 1 cost us our run. Dice was fouled and Wade hits an AND 1 where he barely gets hit. I'd rather win Game 4 than game 3 so you can have the series tied either way, but if you win Game 4 you have momentum for the 5th game. However it worries fans in must win games. This team isn't moving the ball and Flip is going to have problems when he gets older because he keeps all his anger bottled up inside. He's already starting to twitch. we had a lot of bad calls and Flip needs to send a message to the refs that he won't have it. I hope we start to trap Wade. It worked so well so many times. I say we pull it off early and see how the rest of the team responds.

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"That's the end, man." Rasheed Wallace