Like I mentioned above, the Magic turn it over against everyone. They averaged 17 per game this season. You can't give up 58% shooting and expect to win consistently, but I think we can probably expect plenty of bad passes and poor ball-handling from Orlando in the rest of the series.

The only stats that matter now are the Ws and Ls. One down, fifteen to go. Enjoy the win!

I do enjoy the win, however, as D4E said, if we continue to give up +50% shooting and get outrebounded, we will not reach 15 more wins......

Yeah, but I was really arguing that we're more likely to see Orlando's shooting percentage going down than their turnover numbers. I don't think they can consistently shoot 58% against the Pistons, but I'm pretty sure they're consistently going to turn it over 15-20 times per game.

I am tired from a long drive home from a friend's house. I had great fun watching the game. The most amusing thing to me was watching Howard miss all those free throws. All season long, I rooted for Howard to make his free throws, but right now he the enemy and I loved every miss.

I could not help enjoying see Arroyo and Darko do well, but I thought that was ok as long as they did well in a losing effort.

I am sure many fans can see that Orlando could make some simple adjustments in who they let play and give us an even tougher series. But rest assured, Coach Hill is the most stubborn guy you will ever meet. He won't change a thing as his team goes down in four.

On our side, two things I did not like. we shortened up the bench a bit too much, which anyone could have predicted would happen, and two, why was Chris Webber out there when we had a good lead with 5 minutes to go. A defensive player should have been put in to hold the lead at that point, not Webber.

By the end of the first quarter all the Pistons starters had gotten into the score book. Good sign indeed when all your guys are hitting shots. But other than Sheed hitting a short jumper, it was all outside shots. (Not counting the fast break score by Tay.) Bad sign. Orlando was beating us badly inside, and this continued all game long. As someone noted (I read the comments here and at micro's joint before doing my report) Orlando shot 60%. Thank goodness for Howards complete inability to hang onto the ball. We did not get that many points off turns really, but we certainly had a whole lot more shot attempts. And if you factor in Howards trips to the free throw line, hey, you can add about 3 or 4 more "turns" right there.

Howard certainly did not hurt us with his offense when you consideer all the turns and missed ft's, but he was their only force on the boards. As he played just about the whole game, Detroit certainly failed (or actually did not even try a bit) to get Howard in foul trouble. Dyess was useless in this game. He made a couple of shots, but all he does is shoot outside shots. Not a chance to get Howard in foul trouble, and he was not hitting his shots for the most part. Yes, he had a good day on the boards, but I know he is capable of scoring inside. I was hoping all those outside shots he took the last couple of regular season games was just target practice, and not an indication that he was going to forget the inside game he had been developing. We need inside scoring from him, and fouls on Howard.

Sure I loved to see those 3's from Sheed fall, but again, it is not going to get Howard in foul trouble. Hopefully this is just part of an overall strategy to force Howard out away from the basket for the series, but I don't quite have that much faith in Saunders that its anything but bad coaching.

CB and Rip took turns abusing Nelson. Nelson hit a few shots, but by no means can he make up for his total lack of D in this one. And fortunately for us Piston fans, this will continue all series long, for again, Brian Hill won't change a thing. Thank goodness for him.

Delfino got inside once, and nailed a few outside shots too. Good D as always. No Flip Murray, minimal time for Hunter. Davis and Maxiell got about 4 mintues each. I can just remember Maxiell cutting inside for that dunk.

This was basically a 7 man rotation, the starters plus Delfino and Dyess. Orlando's bench got considerably more playing time, but still not as much as a typical Hill coached game. Apparently, the fact that the games are Nationally televised, with longer TV breaks, is allowing Hill to leave his starters in longer, which can only be to our benefit, as maybe, no, just one of his starters should be starting.

Webber had a bit of of inside game going, plus he made the one outside shot. Without him we would have near zero inside presence. Tay did not do a lot of scoring but had 6 assists. Him not scoring was no big deal as our real mismatch was so often over Nelson. Got to go with what's easy. Stealing candy from a baby really. Should be the same next game. GO PISTONS!!!!!

I'm not sure if it was just that he got off to a good start, but Sheed really seemed focused today. He went inside early and had a nice shot selection overall. I think it was just his body language though. He seemed quieter and looked like he was really concentrating. There were a couple borderline calls against him (although they seemed like the right calls) and he dealt with them in a semi-positive way.

Dyess- I think the defense was bothering his shot. The Magic seemed to be keeping an eye on him and not leaving him open in his sweet spots.

Dale Davis- heck yeah. I hope he gets minutes in every game this series. He is the perfect guy to frustrate Dwight.

What worries me is that Rip, Sheed, and Chauncey all had very good games and we still could have lost. That is not usually the case.


It is worth reiterating how many bone-headed plays the Magic make. They are toast in a half court game. I'm not sure why they don't run. With their shot blockers and athletic players they could do some damage. Their turnovers would probably be less... since 50% of them now are from trying to feed Dwight in the post.


All in all, this is a good warm up series for us. I was more afraid of Milwaukee last year that I am of these guys. There is just no way when it comes down to it that the Pistons wouldn't be able to out execute the Magic.

__________________
I Personally guarantee that the Cleveland Cavaliers will win an NBA Championship before the self-titled former 'King' wins one.

Missed the game (had to DJ in TRaverse City)... thanks for the Caps, recaps & Leecaps.
Especially nice to hear about Sheed steppin up.

Darko: The magnificent mumbler (or is that bumbler)?





The Pistons took Milicic second overall in the next season's draft. He played Saturday despite spraining his foot earlier in the week.
"Darko was great. I wasn't sure if he was going to play, so I asked him right before game time and he just mumbled," Grant Hill said. "I didn't know what that meant, but I guess I know now that mumbling is good. He had a good game here in Detroit, and I know he was dying to do that."



NBA - Orlando Magic/Detroit Pistons Recap Saturday April 21, 2007 - Yahoo! Sports

__________________
I think I've lost my way. Would somebody please point me in the direction of the "MAKE FUN OF RASCOE" THREAD???

Couple of things. Take all the ifs ands and buts and save them for another game. If Orlando had made more FT's then the game would have been closer and we all know how much differently the Pistons play in close games. They usually find a way to win.

Some good things. Howard was held in check after the break. Ball denial by Sheed there. Grant Hill is intimidated by Prince. There are your 2 best Magic players and the Pistons have answers for them. Some potential problems for the Pistons are Turkoglu ( if he gets hot ) and Ariza. Piston guards have trouble chasing Ariza around and Turloglu presents some matchup problems due to his height. Can switch Prince on Hill to shut him down but if Turk gets hot he can shoot right over Rip.

Pistons are going to sweep this series, I am still confident.

__________________

pretty easy game. didn't get to the palace until late in the 1st quarter because i was doing a road rally (and naturally they calculated the placings wrong and we lost out on prize $). had 2 orlando fans sitting in front of us. the crowd was pretty good, several like-minded fans around me (when darko touched the ball we'd yell "SHOOT IT!!" and such).

while part of our strategy was to foul, the refs did their best to keep the magic in this game and the espn viewers from clicking elsewhere. some of the calls were just ridiculous. howard should've gotten an offensive foul on one possession but instead webber got hit with the call. in another case, in the span of a few seconds, the refs botched 3 calls in a row. or the incorrect blocking call on delfino. or the legitimate block tay had on howard that was called a foul. and the game would've been over had they not called that incredibly lame charging on billups when nelson flopped.

thoughts:
- orlando was lucky they got the benefit of the whistle and shot so well, otherwise this would've been a 25-point blowout.
- darko didn't look bad but it's mostly because they weren't checking him.
- sheed is doing a good job spreading howard out, but no one was crashing the boards for us.
- dice had a good game, but took his shots about 1-2 feet past his normal range.
- delfino played great and looked very confident. but he had a hard time defending grant hill because hill gets so much more respect.
- we got lazy at the end on defense, not moving our legs.
- might wanna try flip against arroyo next game ... their guards aren't a huge threat to score so lindsey's defensive prowess isn't as meaningful, and orlando kept crawling back every time he got into the game.
- it's encouraging that we played 10 guys and tay only had 37 minutes.
- rip and sheed were controlled and very focused.