What a game. What a boring, waste of a night game.

I never thought the Pistons had a chance in this one. Contrary to what a lot of folks have written, this wasn't about killer instincts or lack of desire.

They simply ran into a better Miami squad and didn't have the best game themselves. It makes the Game 1 "fatigue fest" all that much important, because stealing one in MIami is not a given.

Back to the Heat, they played great. Shaq in particular dominated the "painted area" and Wade was hotter than the dayside of hell.

We're in a tricky situation because Rasheed's ankle injury has taken away a lot of his mobility. He's not able to get lift on shots (at times over jumping on 3s) and his lateral quickness has totally disappeared.

Hence, he racks up fouls faster, and can't contribute on offense.

Which would all be fine if McDyess could come in and give 25 minutes of quality play, but he's been terrible. For every made shot, he's given up an open look for a likely turnover, and defensively, he's always just that fraction of a second late that guarantees the call is on him.

But even with Dyess not playing very good, we still have Dale Davis right? Nope. Maybe it's a conditioning/rhythm thing but when Davis didn't challenge Shaq physically and lost position, forcing him to hug foul, I realized what a complete waste of money he is. I can freaking hug foul Shaq for CHEAP, and I'm a pretty tenacious rebounder to boot!

The only help Davis is going to be in this series, is to eat up fouls. The guy is so far out of his prime, and SLOW that we'll never see Elden Campbell type defense out of him. He simply cannot make Shaq work for his shot.

Anyway, it is what it is. These are the guys we have, those are the guys they have, the series is 2-1 for the Bad Guys and Game 4 is a must win.

We need Tayshaun and Ben to produce offensively, and we need to draw fouls early. Anything less, and we're out.

Oh yeah, and one more thing.

WE NEED TO RUN AND TREY BOMB THE HECK OUT OF THESE SUCKAS.

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To all of my friends, comrades and companions at PF.com

Thank you for another great season!

I agree with you. Important that we have CB back. However, he still need to average 8 asst a game which is a rare thing since the playoffs started.

We need more from our forwards. Sheed, Tay and Dice need to do more both offensively and defensively. We NEVER expect Ben to be scorer since Dumars got him here from the Magic and don't think we can make him one now. So, points from our forwards is critical. Defensively, Ben definitely need help. Ben already has his hands full with Fatty and therefore we got to keep the driving penetration from Wade and Walker. We should try forcing Wade to drive to his left, not at the center or his right.

Game 4 is definitely ours.

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DETROIT BASKETBALL

Disappointed with the loss but have no expectations for this team going forward. If they win, great, if they don't, they don't. It seems as if the fans have more emotional involvment with the team than the team deserves. This team has not shown the passion, focus and team work of prior Pistons teams. Maybe its Flips fault for not demanding a tasking work ethic, but I will let him slide a bit on this as in many sports veteran teams need minimal coaching. IMO this lack of playoff performance is largely due to the fact that the team is slowly becoming a collection of growing egoes. A team can lose games but it should NEVER EVER be outworked. Defense is all about effort, not rocket science.

On the practical side, every game it seems as if 2-3 of the starting 5 completely disappear. The Pistons are literally playing short handed against teams with 1-2 legitimate stars who show up in almost all games.

DREW SHARP ARTICLE IN THE FREEP
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...605280719/1051

I agree: Ben's free throws suck, Sheed isn't in the paint, not enough Delfino, etc. While all these things may be true, the thing that really bugs me is the WAY they are playing. No plays. One pass, then shoot. Ride the hot hand... I hate it. I want to see the pass that leads to the pass that gets the assist. I want to see consistent ball movement and consistent defensive effort. Is that too much to ask?

Ride the hot hand... puhleeze.

mcdyess has been playing well. he comes in and brings it offensively which is the area the pistons have been struggling. his turnovers are a result of trying to do too much in limited minutes. i think if mcdyess was getting a sure 30 minutes he would settle down and really get rolling. it's obvious that nobody on the heat can check him. mcdyess always gets a lot of bs calls i dont' think they are all because he's a fraction of a second late.

if anybody has been terrible it's been the dpoy. he's getting dogged by shaq and only getting 6 boards in 30 minutes. mcdyess got 4 in 25 and added 9 points. i think the heat know where our weak link is and they are attacking it. it's ben wallace and flip doesn't want to hurt ben's ego so he lets miami have their way with us. ben needs to sit simple as that.

It's not Mcdyess okay. The whole team is playing like crapp. I agree with the BS calls though. When we were down by 1 Dice got hacked on a dunk and then he tried drawing a charge on Wade and he gets called for a blocking foul. I hate NBA refs.

Nice call Tate. It was a 15 point loss. Lets hope you're right for Game 4

A the risk of whipping a dead pony, Flip seems incapable of making in-game adjustments. We got beat mainly because they fronted our forwards and we never could solve it. He never adjusted.

They adjusted to our beating their pick and roll by grabbing Ben every time he touched the ball. We never countered.

There is not much you can do when Shaq is rolling like that but we let Wade get into a rhythm. We should have knocked him on his butt a couple of times. Rip didn't seem to cover him as tightly as in game 2.

Why wouldn't they try Cato on Shaq? He is bigger than Davis or Ben. Let him burn up some fouls and make Shaq work a little harder.

Why do we continue to bring the ball up so slowly? Wouldn't it make sense to bring it up quick to make Shaq run the floor.

Why did we take out Sheed when Zo came in? He owned him in game 2.

The managerial mistakes are very frustrating.

congo, nice to see you around!

All of the mistakes are frustrating. Hunter seals the Game 2 win, and the hardly plays in Game 3.

Evans plays all year, and has been shooting excellent in the playoffs.

No run.

I'm at a loss. I really hope someone writes a tell-all about this season so we can find out what is what!

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To all of my friends, comrades and companions at PF.com

Thank you for another great season!