If I recall, we mixed up our defensive looks in Games 6 and 7, which had Lebron leaning heavily on his teammates to hit open looks, which they didn't.

Last night was more of the same. The Low was pissed during chat that we were running 3 men at LBJ, but you cannot allow him to dribble penetrate or it's death by dunkfest. You have to play the slow patient game of making him pass and his teammates shoot themselves out of it.

Until they develop a consistent second option to break up the double teams on LBJ, they will not go far.

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

Thank you for another great season!

This of course is true during every single game.

- Lebron James

NBA.com

Now what am I going to complain about? Flip is playing great rotations, Murray is getting benched, Delfino is playing well, Jmax is playing well and Darko is sucking it up, Blaylock is getting pt.

I need conflict, I need conspiracies, I need to rant, where's Larry when you need him.

lol 16 mile. i always wondered what'd happen if we had games where the pistons played exactly like the forumers wanted. where's the controversy!

Glad I didn't watch. Or I would've sweated for the first 90 minutes.
Still the Pistons were getting 3, cashed a small ticket.
Next up Atlanta, @ the P@AH, didn't they beat us once already? They're in trouble.
Pistons seem to need a little hate going to bring their A game.
It seemed everyone like the minutes rotation:
------- pos.-min-fgm-a3pm-aftm-aoffdeftotastpfsttobs-pts
C.Billups G-37:104-132-47-7033101000-17
R.Hamilton G-29:254-100-03-315621130-11
R.Wallace F-25:534-120-31-206601120-9
T.Prince F-38:388-110-10-017830001-16
N.Mohammed C-22:59-4-90-02-242603130-10
A.McDyess 23:38-5-80-01-1381104201-11
J.Maxiell 16:59-5-70-01-512302011-11
C.Delfino 16:26-0-20-00-01341200-10
W.Blalock 10:50-0-10-00-00001001-00
R.Murray 09:36-0-30-00-00001100-10
D.Davis 06:18-0-00-00-00110100-00
R.Dupree 02:07-1-40-00-020200000-2
43% FG and 75% FT
I guess it's hard for Brahma to go from power to touch evidenced by his FT%

No, the Pistons beat the Hawks at the Palace last month.

Good let's give them another spankage.

Just got to TN after 8:45 in the car driving down, so my first chance to comment on last night.

Just got to say, I loved that basketball game. It was ugly at times, but I really like the way the team played from the JMax dunk over Gooden to the Prince one on the assist from Rip where most of his head and shoulders seemed to be above the rim. Sheed took some early threes figured out they weren't falling, and then glory of glories, stopped.

I don't see much from Blalock yet, but I don't notice much of a step down from Flip either. JMax forgot to rebound some of the time, but nice offensive touches. Good coaching job I thought and the kids really seem to have gotten the defensive switches down.

I could do with another couple dozen of these.

__________________
"But first, are you experienced? Or have you you ever been experienced? Well, I have."
Jimi

Until Amir gets a shot at playing time, until JMAX, the much better player, or Dale Davis, has taken all of Mohammed's minutes (along with Amir) I will complain. As good as I know Amir is, thats plenty of controversy.

And this non-sense about giving Flip Murray playing time to work out of his "slump" (which is really just how he naturally plays) is another contentious item. Carlos Delfino should be our backup shooting guard, adding ball handling skill to our backcourt. Flip Murray should not be playing.

And finally, Billups is still playing too much. Blalock needs to get up to around 16 minutes per game. Blalock only getting 5 minutes in the first half, instead of getting more like 10, is something that needs to change soon, before Billups gets another injury from overplaying.

Finally, absolutely, we need to go to a big lineup where either Amir Johnson or Jason Maxiell plays some small forward. After seeing JMAX play D the last few games, there is no longer any doubt in my mind that JMAX can do what Corliss did at small forward for us, but even better. JMAX can do as good on O, and provide far better D than Corliss did at the small forward position. Amir is even quicker, so can do even better there. I can't until the day I see a front line of Amir, JMAX, and Dale Davis in for us. (Or Dyess instead of Dale)

The common theme to all this: The Pistons need to be maximizing their chances of winning it all this season. Anything less is unacceptable.