After watching the telecast, man, did Maxiell ever have a good game. Maxiell in the game meant us getting leads. It meant the other team could not score. Maxiell out of the game meant we lost the lead, and rather quickly I might add. Flip wisely put JMAX back in quickly each time he was taken out of the game. Lots of minutes for JMAX in this one. Don't let that rebound stat fool you by the way, JMAX tapped the ball, under control, to a teammate about 4 times.

Brand vs. JMAX. Kelser said it would be big key for this game. Best word to describe the matchup? Domination. On JMAX's part. If Brand scored, someone else besides Jason Maxiell was guarding the guy.

JMAX only got one bucket off a post up move, the rest from cuts in. But as Kelser said, JMAX was having a huge game, due to his defense on Brand.

Dyess had a pretty darn good game himself. Not defensively though. From what I can see in this game, Maxiell should absolutely be the first big off our bench. (But Dyess is making a great case for himself too, showing some really good ups of late.)

Rip started 8 for 8, including one triple. Can't say enough about his consistency.

CB ended up with 19 and 11 assists, pretty good game. Six of those points were triples to put the game away after LA got it to within 10 with just under 4 to go.

Rip is making some good passes to go with that scoring.

CWEBB continues to can his outside shots as well as score impressively in the post. His defense is not all that sound though. Still, averaging 20 and 10 over the last few games is really something.

Tay had one decent scoring backdown to the basket. Other than that, a couple of dunks on fast breaks plus a ton of missed shots. Not a very good game.

Flip Murray looked a lot worse watching on the TV. I guess they gave a few of those passes Murray failed to gather in as turns to the passer. Those were not very bad passes though.

As someone mentioned, just an 8 man rotation in this one. Murray subbed for both guard positions. Delfino some small forward and some shooting guard. Dyess both big positions. All three subs played plenty. Grade on bench development? A+ JMAX got more minutes in this one than he typically gets over a five game stretch about.

Two of two to start the road trip. GO PISTONS!!!!!

Here is my original writeup after listening on the radio:

The game will be played on channel 20, on a tape delayed basis, at 7pm. Don't read this game report if you don't want to know what happened yet. I will do another report after watching the game. Here is what I gathered from listening to t he radio.

Webber is averaging 20-10 now for the last three games. Nice trend. Webber continues to get his from the inside, as well as knocking down the occasional jumper. Webber missed about 7 free throws today or we would be really talking about a monster game from him.

Rip hit his first 7 on his way to about 23 points. He had 15 points after one quarter. CB is out of his shooting slump from behind the arc. First one missed, then he hit 4 of his next 5 long ones. I believe he ended up with 19 points.

Maxiell and Tay did not do a whole lot on offense, although JMAX did manage to get scores from cuts to the basket here and there. Dyess did some scoring inside. Delfino continues a trend of late of knocking down a triple early 4th. Murray played, and did not do well. A mention of his name usually meant the ball getting turned over or him taking a bad shot. I did hear him get praised for good D a couple of times.

You know CWEBB is not a very good defender. Yet the front line of the Clips was atrocious in this game. Credit Jason Maxiell for a lot of that. Over and over you heard Brand driving on JMAX, Brand stopped dead in his tracks. Blocked, missed shots, or had to give the ball up. At one point mid-4th with us up about 18, Brand was 4-12. The best defensive stretch for us was early 3rd quarter, when the Clips simply did not get even one basket for the first half of that quarter. We went from a 4 point lead to a sizable lead by the end of that quarter, 14 points. I think it got up to 18 at one point.

The best the Clips did was get within 10 with 4 minutes to go in the game, on mostly triples by Thomas. (We were ahead 18 with 6 minutes to go in the game.

JMAX played most of this game. He stayed out of foul trouble, played great D, and basically made us not miss Sheed one bit. I heard no mention of whether Detroit was appealing the tech Sheed got to force him to sit this game. Considering Sheed needs to let that ankle heel anyway, it really does not matter.

JMAX would have had a much better game if he could have held onto the ball inside more. Surely he is strong enough, probably inexperience. But JMAX gained plenty of experience playing in the NBA tonight. His first start playing starters minutes. A huge part of the game, congrats JMAX. GO PISTONS!!!!!