Dear Pistons,

Please keep moving yourselves and the ball on offense. When you look at the tape, you'll agree, I think, that you get much easier shots when you do this. Plus, the movement on offense seems often to translate to movement on defense. Plus, when you aren't throwing up early out of rhythm jump shots there are fewer long rebounds that allow Cleveland to get down court before you've set up your defense.

It's okay to set up for isolation post-ups, and even for the guys posting up to dribble himself into position. But please, the other four guys, can you not just stand around, can you at least pretend to make a cut or something, or even switch places around the perimeter. thanks.

me


oh, and pass this on to Chauncey and Rip. I don't know where they are.

__________________
"Only when the past ceases to trouble and anticipations of the future are not perturbing is a being wholly united with his environment and therefore fully alive."

BINGO.

I said the same thing even a couple of games in the Bulls series. The lack of player/ball movement is what`s killing us.

Please, please nobody say somebody is fatigued, that is a bunch of BS.

nobody is fatigued. and i can't explain this problem, which seems to me to be mostly mental since the cavs can't physically keep you from moving without the ball. so it seems to me to be something along the lines of a brain fart, a kind of forgetting, even, dare i say, a mild form of panic. one of the things about moving without the ball and about moving the ball when you have it is that it requires a certain trust that even though you aren't individually controlling the play, the process of movement and ball movement, will add up to something that is good for the team, somewhere during the possession. now and then, sure, a good shot will just not fall or a pass might go astray or get dropped or what have you. but most of the time, something good is going to happen. so i start to wonder if at those times the pistons, who are all decent offensive players (I mean, decent enough to be tempted by the belief that they can take their guy and get the bucket we need), lose that trust, especially if Cleveland starts to heat up or we have a couple of bad luck possessions.

__________________
"Only when the past ceases to trouble and anticipations of the future are not perturbing is a being wholly united with his environment and therefore fully alive."

jmax has turned around several playoff games this year. he is an impact player. i don't think you can simply say that not playing him wouldn't have helped win it. he can defend better than webber and he's super aggressive on the offensive boards. gooden wouldn't have been busting jump shots in his face.
flip murray came in and did what our other guards could not. he went to the hole strong and finished. flip murray put pressure on thier defense. i disagree that him playing more wouldn't have helped us win tonight. i think flip playing instead of chauncey turning it over and rip bricking would have helped us win. delfino hit his first shot on a good move on lebron yet he gets no more minutes. we have to reward our bench we have to play the players that are doing well on the court. the strategy of playing the starters no matter how well they are playing is why we are losing. we aren't built like san antonio or utah we can win without several of our players having good games. i mean who besides rasheed and jmax have had good games??

I hear you Professor.

However, how can something that always worked so well in the past lack trust now? I mean, we haven`t even tried to utilize the crisp ball movement and cutting that made our offense look so potent and effecient.

What amazes me is that a veteran, an All Star, Finals MVP player like Billups, can be so incompetent in 3 straight games!

Let a rookie, yes a rookie out play him, and the kicker - in a contract year, in the ECF!!!!

Simply unbelievable.......

I dunno about the Pistons, but I am feeling pretty fatigued this morning.

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

Thank you for another great season!

Well, I feel like I have seen some of that movement, sporadically, and it always seems to lead to a little run, an admittedly subjectively gauged increased "smoothness", and upped intensity on defense (see 3rd quarters in this series, games 1 and 2 in chicago, 2nd half of game 3 in chicago) and then here and there in other games.

I am very worried about rip and cbill our bigs are totally outplaying our allstar guards.fmurray and cdelf gave some good minutes but all in all lebron finally decided to make some superstar plays last night and made some pretty ridiculous 3 balls which i really dont expect him to keep making...... but if he does we could be in trouble.That being said we won 2 games basically being carried by the bench and sheed and lost game 3 cus bron bron decided to have a dwade like performance in the 4th I expect us to win game 4 and close it out at home

Agreed.

I guess the key is to consitently move the ball and move without the ball. It is obvious the Pistons are at their best when this happens.

And there is nothing like making a few easy buckets to increase that intensity on defense.

Let`s be honest, if Flip sticks with Billups for an extended amount of time, quick, timely passes and cutting to the hoop will be the only way for the Pistons to be successful when CB is on the floor.

Out of all of the analysis of how our guards have underperformed, lack of ball movement, and excessive iso's in game 3, this quote right here is the best analysis of them all. WE DO NOT NEED TO PANIC, NO ONE ANTICIPATED THIS SERIES WOULD BE A SWEEP. CLEVLEAND GOT THEIR WIN OUT OF DESPERTATION AND WE WILL TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS ON TUESDAY. GUARANSHEED