Good win, 4 of 5 with CWEBB starting for us. Chris Webber had his best game as a Piston. 17 points, 13 rebounds, 3 blocks. The game stayed in halfcourt mode quite a bit, although Indiana did adjust that in the 2nd half when they realized our halfcourt D was just too solid. The Pistons scored not a one fast break point, so they had to show a fast break from Indiana for the fast break of the game.

And just why would we ever want to push the ball when we have Sheed and Webber scoring all nite from the post? Sheed ended up with 20 despite just getting 2 points in the first half. Sheed also added 7 rebounds, 3 steals, and 5 blocks, I think 3 in the first few minutes of the game. Webber started quickly in scoring and rebounding, but then missed several post up shots-mostly hooks. But he got 7 offensive rebounds, and put a lot of them back in.

Good and bad about the bench. The good, we played 10 guys. The bad, Hunter is still one of them, and he is simply not a point guard. Further, despite playing 10 guys, our starters were overplayed. We were up 13 in the 2nd quarter with about 6 minutes left to go, and in comes all the starters. Now, the starters had given us that lead, and the bench was just holding their own, but you know, the game is not won in the 2nd quarter. It can certainly be lost in the 2nd quarter though. One, here we were tiring our starters out with their bench still in, plus we were losing our lead to boot. In this game, it did not matter though as these starters took a tie game, and scored 10 straight in the closing minutes of the game. Guess they were not all that tired.

Five minute heroes. Rip hit a midranger. Sheed ditto. Webber a tap back. That Webber tap back in particular gave us control of the game.

We still used a lot of zone. Our zone still got burnt plenty, but at least for this game we did actually did mix zone and man to man a bit more effectively.

Maxiell seriously needs to work on short shots. He looks a bit lost in shooting an 6 to 8 footer. Better get a lot of practice, cause he keeps getting shots at that range in games. However, it is also my observation so far this year that Jason Maxiell finds it quite difficult to get a comfort level offensively in very short minutes.

Dyess scored very impressively in this game, especially early 2nd quarter. But we could not make defensive stops to increase the lead. In the 4th quarter, our bench kept them from scoring the first few times down, but could not score themselves. Well, considering how little they play as a unit, I mean, its always a different mix, what can anyone expect.

Dyess had plenty of bounds with those points. We held O'Neal to 1 of 8 shooting in the first half, but he got hot in the 4th. He scored once on Maxiell, and we pulled Maxiell from the game. Then he went nuts scoring on Sheed. Maxiell was not the problem.

Dale Davis did not do much, yet he gave us energy. Even though he ended up not doing anything under the basket on offense, he was there, despite Indiana's best efforts to keep him away from the basket. It had to have helped wear Indiana out a bit.

Tay seemed to, on occasion, realize Dunleavy was guarding him, and got agressive on O. But you know, since we had an inside game going, why would we really want Tay or Rip to score all our points anyway. Or Billups. We got 37 points between Sheed and Webber, mostly inside, while even Dyess could count quite a few points as inside scoring. Thats a shift in the right direction. GO PISTONS!!!!!

comments after looking at boxscore:

Indiana did end up outrebounding us by a bit. Kudos to CB and Rip, as they quietly nailed 19 of 20 free throws between them. Yep, our starters played too much. Fortunately, Webber got into foul trouble and played more along the lines of minutes he should play. One game further from when Flip manages to tire him out and leave him worthless to us. Delfino got nothing in 12 minutes, but he still gave us energy out there, helping with the ball handling, and spending time gaurding their hottest player, Granger. Delfino did not do that well defending Granger, but not bad either especially considering all the helpout D he was playing too. But again note, it was Delfino we called upon to defend their hot player. That is a compliment to him, I won't call this a bad game for Delfino.