Question, can we beat Houston. Answer, of course we can. We did not beat them tonight, but I think Flip was more worried about finding out what does and does not work against this team. What does not work: Webber trying to be a jump shooter over Ming. What does work: Webber driving in on the slower Ming. Webber missed a ton of jumpers in this one trying to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt thats not the way to go. And then shot some more just to make sure.

Billups was light on defense, and was not contributing anything at all in the first half. Oh well, I guess keeping Billups in condition is more important than a win. Despite the near comeback he led at the end of the game, we would have been better off starting Blalock in this one. We would have a point guard who was not hobbled, who could have drove and dished, and who could have played defense. Defense would have helped a lot. They said CB could not move full speed in practice this morning; good reason not to play the guy.

Rip scored well enough. Here is another guy that was moving a bit gingerly tonight, from a nasty bruise on his thigh. He missed very badly on his first couple of shots, then seemed to start getting his shooting, but just not ever quite all the way back.

Dale Davis was simply tremendous in the first half. If he did not get the bound himself, he fought hard enough such that another Pistons did get the ball. On D, he was right where Houston happened to pass the ball, breaking up the play. Why no Davis, one of our best players tonight, in the 2nd half. Simple. Flip already saw what worked, and was on to learning new things.

No Jason Maxiell, yet we could have used his energy big time. Matter of fact, I bet if he played at small forward in this game, Houston would be hard pressed to stop him. I wonder why Flip chose not to learn about that? Not playing JMAX is always a mistake in my book. Whatever the excuse.

Delfino missed a couple of shots when called upon in crunch time to force something. Not his game. He did hit 2 triples in the 4th to make a game of it.

Flip did fine, as a shooting guard. However, I will point out that Delfino can play the shooting guard positon too, with better D. Murray had a good game overall, plenty of scoring, and good effort on D.

More of what does not work. Webber can't guard Ming. But Dyess can. So why did we let Ming go to town on Webber some more despite how obvious this was. Again, time to learn new things.

Tay did well enough on offense, but his outside shots did not help us tonight. He made some, but we should have been going inside more. Only Delfino, and maybe Billups, should have been shooting any threes tonight. Delfino has been making a very high percentage on threes of late.

Dyess not only can guard Ming with all his new found ups of late, but he can score inside and out. He should have started this game, that is, if we only cared about winning it. Dyess however does not help us when he takes outside shots. He does not make enough consistently to overcome the fact that his outside shots never draw fouls, never force the Houston defense to get packed in tight around the basket so they can't fast break. Dyess should really, really, turn up the effort on going inside.

Delfino played some fine D on TMAC. But yet, Flip never tried to bring in any bench players early to help in either half. Just Dyess. All in all. Good game. Lots of good stuff. GO PISTONS!!!!!