Hog-caps are my favorite part of the day.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think he did specifically say that there are no other rookies in the backcourt in the Playoffs.

Definitely tougher to play guard in the playoffs as a rook because of the poise factor needed to not make a fool of yourself.

I just realized that. I was going by play-by-play and assumed the O rebound was Max on him.

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The defense was spectacular in the 2nd half. I mean old Piston-esque. That irriates me too. I hate how the rotation tightens up and all of a sudden most of the starters play a majority of both quarters. He needs to learn to sub the bench in esp during the 3rd quarter. It's nonsensical to leave them in, and then the 4th comes and he puts himself in an awkward position b/c he's scared of using specific ppl during that time

There are other rookies playing in the PO's, specifically Julian Wright who has looked fantastic and Amir-esque at times.

Flip shouldn't be paying attention to the label "rookie" or what other teams are doing. Play your best avaliable talent (and play them in the 2nd half!)

edited to add;

As for Flip's coaching, i'll agree with bball don't lie, a B; make that a B-. Tay's min need to come down. AA needs to be playing back-up SF, and get time in the 2nd half (or Hermann needs a chance to see what he can do at SF). It wouldn't kill him to throw Amir in for a few minutes (could have done it when we had that lead in the 2nd quarter), and see what happens.

Also our late game situations/plays/offense still blows. We need better play-calling. And better time-management in the 2nd half rotations would help.

Actually, I think he said that there are no other rookie tandums playing in the backcourt who are still in the playoffs and have one of them with Final Four experience. Energy, hit shots, mumble, mumble... then I turned the channel.

This belongs in the Flip Quotes section.

I have read some good writeups by other posters here. Thanks. Always fun to read your observations on the game. In all, most things were covered between what is posted on the two sites I read. Here is what I saw.

I guess I'll start with the 3 point shot made with time running out. Like at least one poster who commented, and many other people I am sure, I was counting down the shotclock in my head and knew Stuckey had goofed by making the extra pass. We lucked out there. But who knows who would have won the game if the shot had not counted. A whole quarter of basketball was left to play. If this had occurred right toward the very end of the game, then it would be a big deal. But it did not, and is not.

For us who love to see the young players play, can't be unhappy about this game. JMAX started again, and did pretty well. He hit 5 of 5 at one point. (Did he ever take another shot? I know he did get to the line.) These were outside shots mostly. Again, we got a lead. Maxiell sat. Lead shrank. Maxiell in, lead grew. Etc. There again was an exception, as we did poorly in the 3rd quarter with JMAX in the game. Or maybe we did not do that bad, as Orlando hitting 7 straight threes is showing some serious talent, open shots or not. If they miss a couple, we still stay ahead in that quarter. Here is my point, we are taking a serious chance of losing a game if we continue to not match up with them. Playing Amir Johnson some of Dyess's minutes and some of Theo's minutes would be a great help to us.

Tay played pretty near the whole game. Not enough rest. He is our best perimeter player, and look what happened to our perimeter D in the 3rd quarter. It went non-existent. The 4 minutes of rest he did get was with Rip playing small forward with Stuck and CB in the backcourt. Herrmann did play a minute or so, but at power forward. Tay scored 17, mostly going inside though he canned a few jumpers too. (And a three.) One fairly spectacular block too. Oh, and 5 assists and 10 rebounds.

Afflalo played one continuos nine minute shift in the 2nd quarter. A stretch where Orlando made either zero or 1 basket. Stuckey was playing along side him. I see some people fret about his D, but it certainly did not seem bad in that 2nd quarter. For much of the quarter, Tay was the only star amongst our four stars out there. Sheed, Rip, and Billups were taking a break.

Yeah, Rip was stinking it up pretty bad most of the night. Just off on his shot, his balance, everything. And did I mention the horrible perimeter D being played in that 3rd quarter? But he hit a key triple in the 4th. At least something for the cause.

Speaking of triples, yes, why did Sheed shoot that one late. I guess it takes a lot of confidence in the team to take a triple when we only needed a 2 at the moment. Well, the team came thru.

Billups was 10 for 10 from the line and nailed a couple of threes on his way to 28 points. But he did not overmatch Nelson all that badly this time as Jameer got loose for a bunch of threes in the 2nd half.

Our old friend Evans had a good scoring game against his former team.
Our 4 man rotation on Howard held well for the first half, but Howard broke loose big time in the 2nd half and ended up with quite a statistical game, and played some very solid D.

Foul trouble did hurt us some in this game. Just one more reason to add Amir to the rotation.

Well, I have quite the headache, so I will stop for now. Again, thanks for the game reports and observations, keep them rolling.

GO PISTONS!!!!!

Edited to add: I wrote this over at the other site after the game. I seem to have forgotten to post it here as I usually do. Must have been that headache.

Thanks for your observations Lee and hopefully its not your blood pressure that's causing the headaches. But don't worry, you took your daughter to game 1, so this series is in the bag.

Its really getting annoying, not one national media person has said anything rational in my mind yet." Qoute Round
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Steve Smith took the human error is natural stance. Which is dumb when we have electronics to fix it.