16 Mile I think your analysis is right on the money.

A few times we find Wade being met by Delfino on the perimeter. Each time, Wade sees a guy 1) a lot taller than he is. 2) a guy squared up and ready to move 3) A guy right up in his grill so he can't shoot. Each time, Wade decides to pass that ball away.

For just under 2 full minutes, we went with Tay at power forward. CB on Williams, Rip on Payton, Delfino on Wade, Tay on Walker, and Dyess on Mourning. The score pretty much stayed at us plus 6 during this stretch.

Tay scored 6 points in the last half of the 4th quarter. A last 2nd heave with his toe on the line that went in. His fancy behind the back dribble drive, and that bucket off a pass from Rip who had drove to the basket, drawing defenders. That was at the 3 minute mark. Clutch time.

Other than not being able to guard Wade, here is what Evans did do positive. He alertly completed a steal (getting credit for it) when Dyess knocked the ball away from Shaq. He quickly passed the ball up to Billups who went down the floor for a fast break bucket off that turn.

Evans got an offensive rebound, wisely decided to pass the ball out. Rip dribbled the ball in a bit and hit a jumper. No assist should have been awarded due to the dribbling, but that is what you get when you play at home. Friendly score keepers.

Arroyo got all his 4 points at the line. Once on a drive in where he was fouled in the act. Another time from smartly catching one of their players out of position and diving into him just to pick up the foul, putting them into the penalty, and getting Arroyo to the line. His outside shot missed kind of badly.

Delfino hit his first shot. Made one of two free throws. Got a dunk on a fast break. That was a very impressive sequence. Delfino saw the offensive rebound was going straight to Rip. Man did Delfino go into action mode. I mean he was moving. He was at the baseline, pretty much behind the other nine players on the floor. He called for the ball as he was sprinting and Rip hit him with a good pass. Delfino pretty much had to dunk the ball to avoid a block. And he did, with good elevation. Does not seem to be anything wrong with this guys knees at the moment. That was quite a display of health.

Delfino also missed two outside shots. A triple try barely rimmed out. A shorter jumper missed short.

A note on Shaq's positioning. For the most part, he just pushed his way to where ever he felt like going. Ben did his level headed best to make it hard for Shaq to do this. I am sure it helped tire the big fella out. But man, was Shaq ever getting good position on Ben. Fortunately, Shaq's shot was off just a bit.

I see some complaining about Ben not helping out. Well, if you give less than 100% concentration toward Shaq, he will just go straight to right under the basket and receive the ball for a dunk. Just be glad Ben managed to stay out of foul trouble, stay guarding Shaq for us for the most part, and manage to pull down 14 rebounds. That is a whole lot right there. A guy can only do so much.

Can't complain too much about the refs. But they did totally blow two calls. The out of bounds Flip got the tech for, of course that was our ball. And about the clearest case of goal tending ever this season by Shaq went uncalled. Kind of like justice though on that, cause last game Ben got away with one too.

We still need to be concerned that that this game could have gone either way when it was tied at 99 with 2 minutes to go. We need to be able to stop Wade in crunch time and it appeared that the way he as feeling it, a shot by him instead of Haslem handling the ball in that possession just under two minutes could have made this more interesting. The closeness of the game and score will put some doubts in some NBA minds if we can really get past these guys even though we have been dominating the league.

As Tim Legler said in his article, if Riles knows how to handle Shaq more effectively as the season progresses, we could see a different offensive set come May. Of course, Shaq could be worn down by then.

Hopefully when Hunter comes back the defense will improve some, but we still need to be concerned about the rebounding. The bench play is starting to turn around, just need to get more consistent in the scoring.

I hate when I mess up my VCR Timer. I got 3/4 of the game. Accurate post guys.
KCM,--Miami not as good as Spurs--BS!
I was impressed with JWill, much smoother than the Mitten.
One thing I noticed about both teams, when they shot there was no rebounder in the paint. If it didn't go in, uncontested rebound.
Lee take your medicine.
ArmyG, you're right we need to get bigger and a scorer. A 5 point win at home is not enough. I sence trouble.

They aren't. Not yet.

We played the Spurs on the backend of a road trip, without their All-Star shooting guard. We did not get their best game.

I thought we got the best game the Heat can play right now. They will get better, we will have to get better. You cannot lose the battle of the boards, FG% and expect to win. You also cannot expect to "gut out" home wins and be considered dominant. A couple home cooking calls in Miami, and the outcome may have been different.

Read this. Free your mind...

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."

"Just another notch in the win column." My nitpicks:

1) Williams/Wade: dribble penetration. Similar to what Parker/Ginobili could do to us, their 2 guards killed us in this column. Whenever they got the ball into the lane, it was a layup, an oop for Shaq, or something bad. And our infamous "front line" let them. Solution: We know that we can get into Wade's head easily. Don't be afraid to knock them on their asses!

2) Solution for Wade. In general, Wade dominated that game. He got 14-for-20. When he's hot, there's not much you can do but shut down everyone else. Put a different guy on him (Lindsey comes to mind), give him different looks, and knock him down. He isn't a proven clutch player thus far, so him having the ball at the end of games could be a good thing for the Pistons.

3) Solution for Shaq. The most dominating player in the game is NOT what he was before. He's definitely out of shape. I found that, when we pushed the ball, we made him run. Even if there's no plays in transition, he'll have to get his ass down to play defense. Make him pay. Defensively, we have 4 guys who can cover him adequately (Ben/Sheed/Dyess/Davis) so use those fouls especially when he's shooting bricks from the foul line. We also need to front him in the post and deny him position down there, because once he's deep, he's deep.
Also, I like how our players fronted him with a little bit of double-team action. When Rip or someone would come up and give Shaq a little more existence of defense, he gave up the ball (via instincts of triangle offense).

4) Chauncey and bad shots. Billups needs to take his time out there. He could have it in clutch time, set everyone else up, abuse his smaller defender, and take the 3, but he did have a bad stretch (start of the 3rd quarter). Especially out of halftime, he'll need to continue distributing the ball and not chucking up 3s and early shots like he did in this game. We don't need him all the time scoring the points to get the crew going after the half.

5) Haslem and his jumper. We know he can hit that jumper from just outside the paint, so Sheed or Dyess should front him. The bad side is that we lose a rebounder underneath. But honestly, Haslem's jumper was the only thing going down in the clutch for the Heat.

6) Bench production. I am proud with Delfino and Arroyo's performances in this game. Like Evans in the Spurs game, Delfino, I felt, gave the spark in the 3rd quarter where it mattered the most. Delfino got Evans' 2nd half minutes, and it was a good move. Evans played in the 1st half and pulled down some good rebounds then, but Delfino was certainly the better player today. When you need ball movement (via his slashing) and just maybe a more-rounded offensive player, he definitely did his job. If there's one thing, we know Delfino is the better finisher than Evans.
Arroyo gave Billups good rest in the 1st half, and he did quite well minus the bad jumper he took. His cross-court pass to Hamilton was dangerous and lucky, but it worked well.

Here is the Pastor’s Report Card for the Pistons-Heat game

Ben Wallace (A-)

Not only did “Big” Ben have a great rebounding game (14) and defensive game (2 blocks, 2 steals) but he also made the best of his limited offensive touches, including a dynamic pass off the rebound which resulted in a dunk.

Rasheed Wallace (A-)

Rasheed looked like a man possessed and on a mission to get his belt back. RW was huge from 3 point land (4-6) but missed a solid A because of only reeling in 3 rebounds.

Rip Hamilton (A)

Had a good shooting night (9-15) but his 9 Assist were huge. I would have gave him an A+ but his defense was lacking at times. However, he did a great job of getting Wade in foul trouble.

Chauncey Billups (B)

Don’t be fooled by the stats. The 30 points and 9 assist was nice but he played horrible defense and forced too many shots. However, only 1 turnover kept him from a B-.Next game he needs to beat JW up in the post to slow him down on offense.

Tayshaun Prince (B-)

Couldn’t seem to hold on to the ball, but he did come up big down the stretch. We will need bigger performance from TP during the playoffs. No one on the Heats roster should be able to guard him.

Bench (A+)

AM and ME were very quiet but CA and CD made up for it. I believe if CA was a starting PG he would be considered one of the top three passers in the league. He had three passes in limited minutes that made me go WOW! In regards to CD he might have one the game for us. His energy off the bench was crucial. The game was slipping away and he came in with a shot, dunk and ½ of three point shot.

Micro the thing that concerns me is the quote from the article that states that the Pistons are 29th in PAINT scoring. This is not good when you consider heavy play by starters on any given night could lead to tired legs. We need to set up or run more plays in the paint just to get our guys confortable with post moves, etc, when the perimeter shots are not falling.

'Dre,

Flip's answer to that during a post game presser was that the FTs are like paint scoring.

A flippant answer if I ever heard one.

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."

The radio post game show carried a long interview of one of the Piston assistant coaches (did not catch a name). He stressed that their pre-game strategy was to make Wade a jump shooter. He said If Wade hits the jumper, just tip your hat, blame the coaching staff, and move on. He mentioned that by backing off of Wade we cut his usual 11 trips to the foul line to 5. Wade got hot from outside making the most of what he was being given. There should be no defensive disrespect to Tay, Rip, Evans or Delfino.

The coach also talked about how fortunate the Stones are to have Ben Wallace. He said no other team in the league has the luxury of garding Shaq 1 on 1, and that it offers a tremendous benifit in helping shut everyone else off. He credited Ben for "taking his lumps and making plays"

Did anyone notice how J Will was getting into the lane. When defending the P&R our bigs did not show, allowing Williams to curl toward the basket unabated. The guard will be late getting to the other side of the pick 9 times out of 10. Once in the lane our bigs are helpless. When Ben/Sheed slide to the penetrating ballhandler Shaq makes himself a highly available target. It all starts with making Williams a shooter off of the P&R.

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Bye Ben...................sigh ................HELLO MAX !!!!!