Phoenix At Detroit

Early Game ~ 1:00 PM

TV: ABC
Radio: WDFN

This is the last game for the league leading offensive team ( 108.4 PPG) PHX on their 5 game East coast swing. They are 2-2 with wins in Indy on Thursday and TOR on Friday where they put up 140 points in the win after suffering 2 blowouts against NJ and Milw. Milw put up 132 points against them on Tuesday.

With a day of rest and virtually no travel time will they be comming into the Palace fresh and ready to play or will the 5 game in 7 day road trip catch up with them? PHX will attempt to avenge the 111-104 loss to the Pistons on their homecourt earlier this year.

PHX sports a 21-14 road record - one of the best in the NBA. They are 6-4 over their last 10 games.




~~


Pistons win #59 of the season 109-102 and clinch East homecourt.
http://www.nba.com/games/20060402/PH...scoreboardhome

The Pistons will have to make their jumpshots, not something that's historically come easy to them in the morning games.

It should be another big game for Dice, too, if they try to guard him with Marion again (and who else would they use? Tim Thomas?)

When you have Pat Burke on your team and the guy actually plays you know your frontcourt is hurting. Pistons must crash the glass and use their size to get the W. Hunter definetly will help slow down Nash.

Pat Burke is the pride of Ireland Max! He's the Irish Darko!

Seriously, gotta hope Ben can cover Diaw. Boris D is now the best undersized (all around) center in the NBA. Keep in mind, he was a throw-in during the Joe Johnson trade, and is now easily a candidate for most improved player.

Tayshaun and Sheed have a tall order shutting down Shawn Marion who would be a MVP candidate if not for being on the same team as Steve Nash.

__________________
To all of my friends, comrades and companions at PF.com

Thank you for another great season!

Micro - Marion is kind of the Millenia's answer to Charles Barkley. Undersized rebound/offensive forward.

I guess there are several ways the Pistons can attack this game. Try to muck up their O by forcing TO's turn it into a half court game. I hope we don't try and outscore them by turning it into a jump shooting contest. Slow it down and post-up Sheed and Dyess.

One advantage will be the offensive glass. Besides Marion and Diaw they really do not have any decent rebounders. As a team PHX only averages 9.5 offesive boards/game so the Pistons can use that to get more shot attempts. If it goes high tempo then the Pistons will need more shot attempts.

Can you imagine if Stoudemire was playing? Next year.

Look for the Pistons to win this one big. The Suns come in giving up an average of a whopping 120 PPg over their last four! They actually won two of those games.

Talk about trying to outscore somebody. It`s too bad the injuries they had this year really hurt them on the defensive end, because their scoring is only down to 108 ppg this year from 110 ppg last year.

The addition of Brian Grant, Boris Diaw, and Tim Thomas has not been as succesful as the Suns had hoped due to injuries and inconsistent play on the defensive end. Hey, this is the "West Side", where offense ids the name of the game, unless you`re the Spurs.

Phoenix gives up 102 ppg a night, look for the Pistons to get just under that in a win. I agree, you still don`t want to run with these guys. I hope they dont bait Sheed and CB to start launching up the 3`s in a wide open affair. Loo for that to happen in the early going.

Bottom line, got to play DEFENSE to win this game. Can't be trading baskets with them. This team put up 140 pts in their last game, on the road.

However, this team without Stoudamire and Thomas has ne defense int he paint. Our bigs should pound the ball inside most of the time. Would like to see more post play, offensive rebounds by our big 3 (Wallace X2 and Dice). If we do this, we may draw a lot of fouls on them too, esp. on Marion and Diaw.

We win this game and we will have home court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs. So GO PISTONS! GO D!

__________________
DETROIT BASKETBALL

Chat is open, I'll try to be by soon. I really want to get my PC DVR rolling for this game.

GO PISTONS!

__________________
To all of my friends, comrades and companions at PF.com

Thank you for another great season!

the last time we faced them was a great game. we tried outscoring them and it worked, but we have to play on both ends. Expect chauncey to be very aggressive.

PHX in town and you have to score, I don't care what tempo you want to set PHX forces you to score, and when I say forces you to score that means they will not play defense, only offense. even when they lose games they score alot of points so if the Pistons come out flat and play switch on basketball look for double digit leads by PHX in some points of the game.

With that being said I think Detroit will have the same type of game the last time these two teams met back i November. PHX was up double digits for most of the game, but Detroits defense got them back and they put the ball in the hole making clutch three point shots.

No matter what you have to score there is no such thing as a defensive battle playing this team they are the best at forcing their tempo on you. If Detroit wins look at them making 8-11 three point shots.

I perdict the final will be Detroit 114- PHX 108