Where the hell was 'Sheed in the 4th?

This thing WILL NOT go back to the Detroit City tied. Uh-uh. No way.

Thanks to the guys who watched Chat tonight. I'm not sure who it was but I'm assuming D4E was a key player for PF.

Yeah it gets negative and folks are entitled to that. I got some crap last game for arguing against it, which I suppose goes with the territory. It's a fine line between being a fan and being the admin.

It's usually that the negativity drowns out positivity and that makes it hard to read and watch at the same time. Personally, I need a break because my one reward all year is getting to enjoy some playoff basketball.

Wasn't a poorly played game by the Pistons as a whole. Basically Billups and Hamilton let us down. I thought Flip had a lot of guts to sit Billups for Flip Murray. I almost wish he had done that more in the second half.

Hamilton and Billups have a synergy. When you disrupt Hamilton, Billups can still have a good game but if you disrupt Billups, Hamilton really can't get off.

Some poor decisions down the stretch hurt us. It would have been nice to run some more pick and pops for Dyess and Wallace, but instead we opted for quick shot opportunities.

Daniel Gibson outplayed Billups. Chauncey's pretty humble on the podium tonight. That's good because the Mr. Big MVP personality sucks.

We need to get Tay back to missing 8 or 9 shots a game so he can defend LeBron. We simply weren't physical enough and didn't make Lebron earn his points at the line with his suspect shooting.

I still think we can gut this out with Billups sucking, but it won't be pretty, so brace yourself, say a prayer to your deity of choice and turn down the TNT announcers because Doug Collins pretty much had announcer love making with LeBron for most of the game and it was really icky.

Who woulda guessed we would get 3 straight well officiated games? I still think Bavetta needs to retire. When Charles Barkley beats you in a footrace and you can't see a foot out of bounds when you stare at it....

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

Thank you for another great season!

I was going to start a separate thread to unload on Saunders but I'll keep it on this thread. What does Flip Saunders bring? This team still scores in the high 70s, low 80s in the playoffs. Wasn't this guy supposed to bring in a great offense to usher the Pistons into the new NBA? What offensive adjustments have been made in this series? It's like watching the Carlisle- and Brown-coached teams. Basically, what Saunders brings is more low percentage shots. Sometimes, I cannot tell the difference between the current team and the LB teams.

lol. Man, if you told people they would get the same stuff from a Flip team that they got from an LB team, there would be partying downtown outside Comerica!!!

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

Thank you for another great season!

I liked LB's emphasis on rebounding and defense, but his teams were difficult to watch from an offensive standpoint, save the 2004 Finals. This team relies too much on 3s in crucial moments. Tonight was a prime example. The Pistons, in my view, have morphed back into those LB teams, but without Ben Wallace. Any personality that Flip Sr. has tried to stamp on this team has been obscured.

Gazoo,

Our adjustments have been pretty poor. And if we don't have plans for a team that goes after Billips, why not? What did we expect?

Our bigs have scored more as a result of the harassment of Billips and Rip. We let Tay handle the ball and he made the same turnovers this series. Sometimes the ball comes back to Billips. Not a bad idea but no flow from it so far. We usually exploit one on one match ups. But out of any flow, this is not a real strategy.

As bad as the Cavs offense is, they actually pass the ball around off of Le Bron.

Still, the main reason we lost is that we lost the defensive intensity.

Speaking of Comerica...only the Cleveland Indian players partied there this weekend with their sweep of the Tigers and then they stayed in the locker room to see their city mates take one from the Pistons....

I thought that 3 by Tayshaun in one of the last (or the last, I already forgot 'cause my memory is %%%%) possessions was a good shot. I just wish it was 'Sheed who took it.

Lets see, Pistons were down by 4 with 30 some sec's left when Tay missed his 3. Then James hit that tough shot to put them up by 6.

Just did not execute down the stretch tonight.

Couple of things. Overall the games have been called fairly. You know James will get his calls but it has not been overlly blatant.

Secondly we complain about the attention James gets but the media has been trying to sell the Pistons and the guys have not been showing up. They were all over Rip when he had a good 1st half in game 1. Mentioned serval times Sheed and his great play. They especially want to prop up Billups and are all over it when he hits a shot in the 4th. Other than Sheed the starters are not putting together complete games.

Ok, lots of comments here on both boards. Lots of ways to write the game up. In the end, Cleveland made shots. A fade-a-way triple from Bron. Big Z hit a fairly long one. Gibson connected. Gooden too. All in crunch time. The Pistons were storming back as per normal, but Cleveland weathered the storm this time. Now, can they do it two games in a row?

On a personal note, this means I am going to game 5. I look forward to watching us close Cleveland out this Thursday night.

Unbelievable. No assists and practically no points from either Rip or Billups in the first half. For the game, our front line came up huge, with at least 15 points each from Webber, Sheed, and Tay. But Webber I liked the most cause he kept going inside. Him picking up his 4th foul early in the 3rd quarter may have sidetracked out usual 3rd quarter surge for a moment, although we did manage a 12-2 run starting about midway into that quarter.

Unfortunately, Dyess made a few outside shots. Again, unless he makes like 6 or 7 of those, it does nothing but hurt the team. We need inside play, not jumpshots.

Typical Flip Saunders. Maxiell gets 15 points in a game, so gets shutout of the rotation in this one. I don't like that. His defensive energy was sorely missed.

Flip Murray did ok. Got some points, gave up some too. Still, he was giving Billups a good long rest. Indeed, since things were going ok, why did Flip bring Billups back for 90 seconds to end the 1st half. And Tay too. Hey, let them sit and relax a bit. 90 seconds ain't going to decide the game.

Dale Davis is another guy missing lately-against Big Z, the guy Saunders said he would get minutes against. No Hunter-but I won't say much negative about that.

Great to see Tay hit the one triple. Not great to see him not getting any rest in the 2nd half. Billups too saw no rest in that 2nd half. Basically, our rotations are nowhere. Flip might have a plan, but I doubt he can remember it during the game whatever that plan might be.

The Pistons did have a darn good defensive stretch in the 2nd half, with Murray in the game. We all hate triples, but when Sheed hit two straight followed by the one from Billups, it sure looked nice. Yes, I love for the ball to go inside, but triples sure can help too, especially with plays designed to get nice wide open ones.

It is surprising what occurred between the halves. In the first half, Murray plays for Billups, and gets some scoring for us. Instead of going back to this to give Billups some rest, now Murray comes in the game for Rip. What, trying to find something that won't work? Does make you wonder. Things don't have to go perfect, but if they can go halfway right, then give your starters at least a bit of a rest to start the 4th. In this one, Saunders failed to rest his starters, and indeed had them all back out on the floor with 8 minutes to go in the game. Kind of early. Did they have it in them-they did execute offensively. But just maybe with a bit more energy left in the tank they could have made those shots a bit harder to make for Cleveland. Or Maxiell could have simply played. His long arms and quickness would have surely made Cleveland miss a couple of those shots. GO PISTONS!!!!!PS-Nice shot by Delfino off that fancy move of his.