micro-cap (better late than never edition)

The Big Nasty

Able to control his propensity to accumulate fouls at a rapid and uncontrolled rate, Nasty Naz established a rhythm and had his first double double as a Piston. Granted it was against a Hawks lineup shorter than a baby midget crawling, but Nazr was active, finished well and pulled down some tough boards. If this was a consistent game for him, he would be a free agent steal at $5.5 million a season.

Delfino è stupefacente e meraviglioso

I don't give Carlos Delfino enough love. Tonight I will. CD had a great game. He didn't score from the field until late in the game, calmly dropping a 3 pointer with the silky smoothness of Ray Allen, but his defense and intangibles (that's the stuff that I see, but doesn't make the stat sheet) were great. He played Joe Johnson, possibly the toughest cover at shooting guard in the Eastern Conference outside of Michael Redd and Dwyane Wade. Johnson went 6-16 for only 12 points. Most importantly, Delfino did not put him on the line.

Delf finished the game with 8 points, 3 assists and 4 rebounds. Truly excellent 25 minutes of court time.

Free Brahma

Maxiell. An absolutely terrible game. He made some tough dunks, but he blew several as well. Jason decided to get a little cute this game, one handing over Shelden and Marvin Williams. Bad idea. This Hawks team is small and hurt right now, but they have a ton of athleticism and their little-bigs are super mobile and strong.

Max was good at the line, but his defense, rebounding and overall energy took a step back tonight in my opinion. It's the goal of every player on the edge of the rotation to strive for consistency. A more consistent effort could have yielded 20 points, 8 rebounds instead of 14 points, 3 rebounds.

In his defense, Maxiell did throw a nice touchdown pass to Carlos Delfino and finished with 3 blocked shots. It's just that I am no longer totally awed by the ferocity of his dunks. I need to see him crash those boards, and develop better footwork on defense. Trying to block everything is something the better big men in the league know how to take advantage of.

The Unemployment Line

After a strong start, Antonio McDyess became lost in the mix again, scoring only 2 points and grabbing 2 boards to go along with 3 fouls in nearly 17 minutes. Dice did finish with 3 blocks, but that is an Adonal Foyle stat line, not what we have come to expect from a 6th starter.

Give Flip a KitKat

He deserves a break. Saunders put the zone in. They said boooo! Zone works. They said that Flip Saunders had intense man love for Flip Murray. Murray has either played well, or gathered splinters in his hind parts. They said that Flip's offense is all jumpshots. Jason Maxiell is re-writing the playbook.

Flip's doing a great job, and it looks like he and Billups may be the only Pistons at the All-Star game (now that AI has moved to the West).

My good guys: Nazr Mohammed, Dale Davis, Flip Murray, Flip Saunders, Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, Carlos Delfino, Will Blalock

My bad guys: Antonio McDyess, Jason Maxiell, Ronald Dupree

My player of the game: Nazr Mohammed

Notes:

• Billups' second straight game without a turnover. He has 4 in his last 4 games.
• Ronald Murray hit double digits in points for the first time in 5 games and only the 3rd time this month.
• Rookie Will Blalock scored his first NBA field goal with a high glass layup in the second quarter.
• The Hawks had ZERO fast break points at halftime.
• The Pistons have won Points-in-the-Paint in their last 4 games. They're 13-3 over the last 16 games.
• The Pistons had 10 players with 16 or more minutes, 8 of them had over 20 minutes with no starters hitting the 30 minute mark.

Nice recaps, Mssrs. 356 and Wave.

Maxiel doesn't rebound well when paired with any front court mate not named Dale Davis. Dale carves out alot of space that allows people to get boards, and he's ALWAYS in the right defensive position on the floor allwing for proper box outs. But all in all it's good to see a game like this, where you take care of bid'ness and get the bench major mins. Some may say "so what it's the Hawks", but it's good to see this team finally start doing the things they're supposed to do, and beat the teams they're supposed to beat, it shows that they're developing the right mental approach for competition.

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Play hard, Play smart, Play together, share the ball, have fun....Play the right way!!!!!!

Brahma = Elton Brand Jr.

Ahhhh my cyber-bro Merc, I was scared to make that comparison, but I have really started thinking along those lines, I don't think he'll be as good as Brand as far as All-Star and MVP talk, 20/10 etc etc......but if people wonder if Max can compete at his size as a PF, one need look no further than Elton Brand, they're almost identically built.

Jmax performance tonight was against a lot of players his age. That said the other guys get more consistent playing time and might end up developing faster. If you are coach Flip you have to look at his performance and say to yourself I have to find a way to keep this kid in games. Jmax could end up being better than J.Y.D. http://www.nba.com/playerfile/jerome_williams/ but the comparisons to Nasty http://www.nba.com/playerfile/corliss_williamson/career_stats.html
and Sir Charles http://www.nba.com/history/players/barkley_stats.html are a stretch. Until the kid gets the time that both of them got you can't even put him in the same league. I like this kid a lot because his game is sort of barkleyish just get in there and make it happen. Charles developed his outside shooting throughout his career and if Jmax does to he will be in great shape.

Quote from Sr.


“Joe was telling me a pretty good statistic,” Flip Saunders said. “Take out our first eight games, when we were three and five, and we’re giving up 85 points a game over our last 17 games and we’re scoring 96. We’ve been as good as you can be defensively the last three weeks.”
The Pistons held Cleveland to 71 points in their last game and could have held Atlanta into the 70s, too, if not for allowing 25 in a fourth quarter that degenerated into typical blowout ebb and flow. “It probably started with the first game when Milwaukee scored 70 points in the paint,” Saunders said. “Our emphasis changed. We started stressing things more. Guys took more pride in it and it got to the point where we said we’re not going to let anything go uncontested inside. We have been contesting everything around the basket and taking charges, going after everything, and it’s a reflection of the guys who are playing and the guys who are giving us great energy off the bench from the standpoint of protecting the paint.”

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With politicians the future lies ahead

Flip must be watching someone else play, not the Pistons. Every time someone drives the lane, Mohammed ignores it and sticks to his guy like glue so he can't end up looking bad. Never comes over to help out, even on the most obvious plays. Mohammed is the guy Flip chooses to start the games, so it is strange he claims he wants to challenge inside scoring. For that, either Dale Davis or Jason Maxiell needs to start.

Dang Lee nobody said we were pitching shut outs, but we are indeed improving. Nazr's rotations have gotten alot better as of late, still not where he should be, but progress none the less. Boy Lee when you got it out for a guy you really dig in deep.

Roscoe... Max was a "bad guy" in this one? really? I mean, he missed a couple dunks, and got scored on 2 (?) times, but he still put in 14 points and 3 blocks in only 20 minutes. I'd rather he spike some shots off the rim being over-aggressive than go soft with everything. This wasn't his best game, but i'm not sure what you expect out of him in 20 minutes.

I agree that rebounding is a concern with him, but it's like Delfino's offense. The good outweighs the bad. Hopefully he can improve, but as it is, the team rebounds better by a decent margin with him on the floor (source: 82games.com), so it isn't hurting us yet. I think part of the problem is that he tries to leak out for the fastbreak score sometimes.