Amir did very well, 20 points, 12 bounds, 5 or 6 blocks (only 4 credited). Plus he looked very good on D. Boston was playing a lot of players who were in their rotation much of the year. These were not total scrubs out there for Boston. On both teams combined their was no bench player better than Amir out there tonight.

Note, yes, the Pistons are still hiding Amir. Not a whole lot of attention will be payed to this game, and people will note that the game was not against Boston's best. Its Amir's contract year. The more the Pistons played Amir this season, the more they were going to have to pay him next year. Thats being cheap. Hopefully, we still can win it all this year despite the Pistons not doing their best to put a winning team on the floor.

Dupree played extensively, and did some good things. He made a couple of shots, hustled to the ball several times. Not much as far as D though.

Flip had one nice play as a point guard, getting to the basket and dumping the ball off to Amir for a score. He also hit the game winning shot. Nice shot. Hunter played a lot of point also. Between the two players, the ball did not get inside enough, although it was better than some games.

Amir scored a lot of his on offensive rebound putbacks. He took and missed on triple try, I believe his only outside shot taken. Barely rimmed out.

Delfino missed several outside shots, but scored 9 driving to the basket. He sprained his ankle early in the 2nd half, but Zaret says Delfino walked off with no limp at all, and the trainer says Delfino will be ready for the playoffs this weekend.

The usual starters played little in the 1st half, and none at all in the 2nd half. Webber, Rip, and Billups did not even dress. Dale Davis started, but played little.

In the same game where Amir got a dozen rebounds, JMAX just got about 4. There is a huge difference in the rebounding abilities between Amir and JMAX. And a huge shotblocking difference, again, in Amir's favor. Speed, Amir has that far more than Amir. Defense-kind of looks like that as good as Maxiell is, Amir just has to much height for JMAX to compete there. So what can JMAX do better than Amir. JMAX has better range on his jumpers. I know most fans don't know that JMAX can even shoot jumpers, but that is actually the strongest part of his game, out to about 18 feet. We just do not get to see it since one, the Pistons don't play him that much, and two, they don't encourage him to take outside shots, especially not fades which he is very very good at.Note, Amir is working on his range too, so don't be surprised if he beats JMAX out in that too soon enough.

JMAX did some good damage inside besides hitting a couple of midrangers. This includes making some free throws; and continues to surprise me that JMAX misses free throws as well as I know he can shoot midrangers. Some people do shoot jumpers at the line. JMAX might have to go to this.

We play Orlando in the first round, which we found out in the last seconds of a very close game between Washington (which won and retained 7th seed) and Indiana. Darko is injured for Orlando and that should help us quite a bit as Orlando is very thin up front in general. You may or may not like Darko that much, but he is at least good depth for them. (They drop off to guys like the ancient Bo Outlaw or the completely void of talent these days Pat Garrity after their 3 bigs, Battie, Darko, Howard.) Otherwise, Orlando is quite healthy. The one player who impacts their wins and losses the most is Ariza, and he is long since over a knee injury that sidelined him much of the season. (During which time Orlando could barely win any games-they were winning a lot before his injury, and of coure, quite predictably, they are back on a roll as Ariza's health returns.)

Turk for them had a very forgettable season, lots of nausea problems, but just of late he is back in shooting form. Howard is playing his best ever toward the end of this season. Arroyo is back in the rotation and doing well. Reddick gets some playing time. Bogans is one of their best defenders, but currently out of the rotation for the most part. Dooling is a clutch shooter who is currently in the rotation.

Nelson is a mixed bag. Really bad days sometimes. Mostly mediocre, but then occasionally some really good shooting games. The national media, and many Orlando fans, continue to wonder if Nelson is really the right point guard for them. Don't be surprised if you see Dooling or Arroyo finish games sometimes.

Hill is playing his best for about the last 3 years, right now. He is even coming around on defense. We may have to start someone other than Webber to address this guy.(Use Billups to guard Battie, Tay to guard Turk, Rip to guard Nelson, Delfino or Amir to guard Hill, and Sheed on Howard.) GO PISTONS!!!!!