Lee, I have to disagree about Herrmann. He doesn't look slow, and he looks more involved than Hayes. More active on defense and more capable on offense. In playoffs Hayes won't have many opportunities to shoot while being wide open and he can't really do anything else well.

Hayes is actually a very good mid/high post scorer, almost Mashburnesque in terms of the area in which he is effective. This team is just not very adept at catering to post players.

My opinion has not changed a bit. Assuming this particular poster is right, we will win it all. I hope he is right. On the other hand, Flip could play the wrong guys, and we could go out in the first round. And no, not for a moment do I trust Flip not to mess it all up yet. (Even with Dumars exerting every bit of influence he can.) While I am a lot more hopeful after this person's post, I wil remain somewhat skeptical of Flip. Lets see him actually do things right this time. Then next year, if he does not mess up this time, we can have some confidence in him.

So what you are saying is we will go out in the first round, or not. Either way, it's Flip's fault.

I would say Hayes is a very good opportunistic post player. If he gets the ball in the post with an advantage he uses it, immediately. On the other hand, on your typical post up play where the defender has a bit of time to set, Hayes ain't that good at all. Tonight he made a pretty good move to score on that fast break. He had the defender at a disadvantage, and immediately recognized what he had to do, executed the play well, and got the score. Hayes is very consistent indeed in this.

He hasn't had many good post opportunities in a Pistons uni. That's all.

Hayes has had a lot of post ups this season. With poor results. Pretty much any defender can defend him in a stationary situation, as Hayes can't move fast enough to gain an advantage. He did have some success early in the season hitting some very heavily contested fades, but you had to know those were not the sort of shots that would keep going in. What Hayes is good at is closing out fast breaks, and scoring around the basket on cuts. Pretty much any time the defender is not set, Hayes manages to score inside. His footwork is solid, just slow.

He manages to score in the post if he gets a mismatch. But that's about it.

The 4th quarter was competitve for a little bit but that was about it. Very nice show that the bench put on for Miami. Probably a lot of fans and players wondering why Riley could not have picked up a couple of players like we have.

Stucky was amazing with those 3 steals and he always manages to find a way to score. I thought everyone was active. For a while there early in the 3rd I was hoping they would hold Miami under 50.

Totally cruched Miami's frontcourt with that Dyess-less and for the most part Sheed-less front line we had. Only dissapointment was Samb, he does not look ready at all.

Curry Junior managed to score 10 points.

This is what I am worried about...all of this experimentation and resting is fine, but if he reverts back to 38+ mins and goes with just an 8 man rotation (which includes Stuckey, Max and Hayes) then we might be in trouble in the second round. I know playoff rosters are limited but AA, AJ and even Dixon got to get some burn if max and Hayes ain't bringing it